


Locked Away

by I_Got_Lost



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime
Genre: Gen, Hurt Optimus Prime, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, The Author Regrets Nothing, Voices in head aren't always fake, handwavey science, optimus prime is Annoyed TM, sleep deprived university students
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27296722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Got_Lost/pseuds/I_Got_Lost
Summary: Lu Bellum, a sleep deprived writer, wakes up one morning to realise that the voice in her head isn't some character begging to be written, but a real-live walking, talking, robot (autobot, sorry) that would very much like to go back to their own body. However, there's a problem. The damn thing's body is MIA, there is possibly another robot (a con? Who names these things?) on her tail, and really, how did she sleep through the total civil war being fought in her backyard?Lu just wants to sleep, eat something, and get this guy out of her head, not necessarily in that order. Her roommate, Asher, just wants to know why their truck has been mashed to pieces.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 35





	1. 50 Bucks Isn't Worth This Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know, another fic. But this one has been bothering me for years and I have finally decided to write it. Anyway, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me.

In retrospect, driving down the backroads to Jasper had probably been the worst decision Lu could have made. Well, to be more specific, driving down the backroads at three A.M. was probably the worst decision she could have made. In her defence, the night was clear and there had been nothing to suggest that anything could go wrong.

On the other hand, Lu was exhausted.

She probably should have pulled over and slept, but good god, she wanted to sleep in her own bed. She wanted to sleep in her own lumpy bed under the window that rattled every time the semi-trucks barrelled by on the highway. Her apartment wasn’t the best, she was willing to admit that, but it had a roof, a bathroom, and a full kitchen. Best of all, there was even an apartment sized washer and drier in the front hall closet.

Her room was hardly big enough to fit a twin bed and a desk, but she really shouldn’t complain. Asher was stuck with having her dresser out in the hallway. On the other hand, if either of them had bothered to put half their books into storage, maybe they wouldn’t have had half the problems with space as they did most days. Either way, she wanted to go home and catch at least two hours of sleep before she had to go into the library and start her shift for the co-op.

She never should have agreed to go do the photoshoot out in the boonies. Fifty bucks was not enough for the amount of the problems she had had throughout the night and lord knew she was going to have to sit beside Asher for a solid hour to touch up the photos before she sent them out to the client. First there had been the realization that her camera batteries had been dead and then there was the problem that she couldn’t find the SD card. So, she had spent a solid half hour looking for her cat’s stash. (Apollo, her six year old tabby was a keloptonaic and nothing was safe. Including her car keys or dinner.)

That being said, the photos Lu had managed to capture had been beautiful, if she did say so herself. And, there was no way she regretted looking up to the stars in the middle of the desert, even if it was an hour out from Jasper, Nevada. No, she didn’t regret moving to Jasper, even if most days she questioned why she had accepted the exchange down to the States instead of traveling over to Finland or somewhere that wasn’t on the same continent as her homeland.

Oh, it was Asher and her ‘come down to Jasper, we’ll have so much fun driving through the sand dunes.’ Not. Yeah, Lu should have argued harder to move to Finland for the exchange program. Two university students, one in art and the other in history, doing an exchange in a backwater town in the middle of nowhere because of some stupid brochure. God, why did she even agree to come?

God, it was three in the morning, the road never seemed to end, and the radio had been nothing but static for kilometers. Groaning, Lu leaned against the door of the truck and rubbed at her temple. She and Asher were lucky she had family in the boonies, not close enough to stick their noses into her business, but close enough that Lu and Asher had flown out to Nevada, bought the old truck off their hands, and then driven down to Jasper before their first class.

Well, at least she and Asher had been having fun.

Reaching over, Lu took her eyes off the road for a moment as she fiddled with the radio. This was probably the second worst mistake she had made all night. The radio hissed and cackled. Lu snarled at the blasted thing.

And a honk blared from the road.

Lu’s head snapped up even as her blood froze in her veins. Some idiot in a sportscar flew by fast enough Lu barely even saw the colour of the paint in her headlights, but that wasn’t what made her curse.

No.

That honour was due to the semi that suddenly appeared in her lane and was screaming at her to move. There was no time. There was no way for her to over-correct or move. There was nothing she could do. Suddenly, she knew exactly what a deer felt like looking at a set of headlights. Froze, terrified, and two seconds from screaming bloody murder. Slamming on the breaks and yanking the steeringwheel to the right, Lu skidded off the road and into the dust of the desert. She barely cleared the road when the semi clipped the back end of her empty bed, sending her spinning off in the opposite direction. Screaming, Lu held on to the steering wheel and tried not to wince at the memories bleeding across her closed eyelids.

When the truck finally shuddered to a halt somewhere off the road, Lu sat staring through her windshield with something akin to fear and fury rushing through her veins. Some asshole had just driven her off the road! Some asshole had just flung her off the road and if her truck was dented then she was going to have problems.

Namely, she was going to take her boot and shove it so far up the other guy’s tail pipe, he was going to be burping up shoelaces and road dust like a pez dispenser for a week!

“That son of a…” Lu screeched, her hands scrambling at the seatbelt as she struggled to throw herself out the door. “I’m gonna take a wrench and…”

Finally managing to shove her way outside, Lu took a few stumbling steps, her hands waving through the air as she gave out a wordless screech. In the dark, it was hard to tell, but Lu could see the tailgate hanging off by a bolt and a wire, and her back bumper was in pieces on the ground.

Oh lord, Asher was going to be furious. They didn’t have the money to fix this!

She should have charged more than fifty bucks for the photoshoot.

Giving in to the childish urge to stomp her foot against the ground, Lu went stomping up to the road. In all honesty, she hadn’t been expecting to see much and she certainly hadn’t expected to see a semi totalled against a telephone pole.

“Holy shit.” Lu breathed, not bothering to censor herself in the middle of the night. Lu had been expecting to see some more debris, maybe even a license plate if she was lucky. She had not expected to see the actual truck.

“Oh my gods,” Lu hissed, common sense finally kicking her upside the head. “Hey! Hey!” She shouted as she jogged across the road. “Buddy, you good?”

Dread curled around her spine and danced a number on her ribs. Her wrecked truck, the hotshot sports car, and her exhaustion slipped away as she went closer to the semi. The night was quiet, almost too quiet. She was expecting to hear the other driver’s cursing or even a few groans if he was hurt.

To hear nothing?

Apprehension gnawed on her bones.

“Buddy? You good?” Lu shouted again, desperately trying to look up to see if there were any downed power lines or phone lines. “Buddy, if you can hear me, say something! I’ll even take a good old fashion cursing!”

Nothing.

“Shit.” Lu swore as she was finally able to take in the torn up front of the semi. Aside from being half wrapped around the pole, the damn thing almost looked like it was bleeding. Grimacing, Lu rubbed at her eyes and mentally promised herself to never drive home so late again. There was no way in the nine-hells a truck was bleeding. The ‘blood’ had to be fuel or anti-freeze. It had to be.

She really should stop listening to Asher and her weekly criticisms of the various conspiracy theories popping up across her dash.

Still, the fluid was one more reason to get to the other driver. The whole scenario, on the other hand, was a fantastic reason to start carrying her cell around again. If this didn’t classify as an emergency, she didn’t know what did.

Swinging herself up to the door, Lu grabbed at the door handle. “Please don’t be locked. Please don’t be locked. Please don’t be locked.” She chanted as she wiggled the handle.

The door popped open.

“Hall-e-fucking-lujah!” Lu cheered.

The door swung open and Lu scrambled out of the way of the loose hinge. Feeling a bit like a yo-yo, Lu flipped back up into the cab and got ready to haul some trucker out into the road. “Please be coherent. Please be coherent.”

Her hand hit and empty seat and Lu shrieked as she slipped forward to fall flat on her face in the cab. “What the…?”

Lu looked up. The cab was empty. Flailing a bit as she forced herself up to her feet, Lu peered around the cab and then, feeling a bit ridiculous, she looked behind the seat to the bed. Nothing.

“How can, I mean… how did?” Lu mumbled as she spun on her knees in the middle of the cab. There was no way anyone could have snuck past her out onto the road and she very much doubted that anyone would be stupid enough to bolt out into the desert.

Lu leaned out of the cab. “Hello?” she shouted out into the night. It was possible the poor guy had stumbled out and was disoriented enough to wander off to fall face first into some dune and rock.

For a long moment, Lu sat in the cab and wondered why the hell this was her life. All she had wanted to do was change the radio station. That was it. That had been her big crime. Changing a radio station.

“I swear officer,” Lu muttered as she let her head thump against the wheel, “I was just innocently changing the station. I have no idea how any of this happened. No idea at all.” She waved a hand through the air. “Like that’s believable at all.”

Her head shot up. The radio! Scrambling over, Lu ran her hands over the dash of the semi, hoping to god she would find a radio and a signal. If she could get a message out to one of the trucker’s co-workers or anyone else in range, then all she would have to do was sit tight and wait for help.

It took a few seconds, but Lu finally let out a hysterical laugh when she managed to find the dropped receiver. Never before had the hiss of static sounded so sweet to her ears.

“Hey, if anyone can hear me. I’m outside Jasper with a two vehicle collision and a missing driver.” Lu all but shouted into the mic, her hands beginning to shake as it finally dawned on her that if she hadn’t reacted so quickly, it could have been her truck wrapped around the pole.

For a long moment, the radio was silent. No static, no noise, no response. Disheartened, but not surprised, Lu dropped a hand down to change the station, when there was a faint burst of static on the line.

“Who...the...what...CON…”

Lu recoiled from the dash as the static clawed at her ears. “Holy…” reaching down for the radio, Lu leaned away from the dash just in case something else came rumbling through. “10-9?”

Heart in her throat, Lu waited for a response. There had to be a response. There had to be something. She wasn’t going to be stuck out here with a wreck and a missing driver for long. There had to be a response.

There had to be a response.

“10-9, please repeat.” Lu rasped through the mic.

Staring sightlessly at the steering wheel, Lu absently traced the metal embossment on the steering wheel. It was odd, but Lu hadn’t seen any advertisement or company names on the semi. She hadn’t seen anything at all. Nothing for her to narrow down where she was or who she was looking for. Hell, the inside of the cab was impeccable now that she thought about it, which again, was strange.

In front of her, something sparked. Lu’s eyes widened, the fuel lines. The whole time she had been in the cab, the fuel lines had continued to leak. Throwing down the mic, Lu twisted back towards the door, one hand landing flat on the dash. She was going to die.

Oh gods, she was going to die.

The semi groaned. There was another spark. Something burned against her hand. Spooked and high on adrenaline, Lu got as far as the step to the cab before warmth bloomed up her arm. Shrieking, Lu found herself flying through the air. Panicked, she barely had the presence of mind to tuck her head into her arms as she slammed back onto the ground.

Light burst across her eyes and Lu screamed in pain.

Gods, she should have charged more than fifty bucks.

Something wet slid across her cheek and Lu found herself staring up at the stars. There was something wrong. There was something wrong. Her ears were ringing, her right arm hurt like hell, and there was something wrong with the stars.

There was something wrong with the stars.

Her breath shuddered in and out of her lungs and her optics flinched shut as he forced her head to the side. She was going to be sick. She was going to be sick. Oh lord, she hadn’t been sick in vorns.

Her sight flickered as she rolled to her side, her processor in overdrive as she tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. Primus, she was going to go into a forced off-line at this rate, and gods, Rachet would never let him live this down.

Forcing herself to her knees, Lu squinted at the light show that appeared to the right. For a long moment, Lu could have sworn cold that there was a swirly doctor who time stream type thing pulsing out in the desert. But that didn’t make sense.

Gods, she was going to be sick.

“Help,” Lu croaked as she tried to climb to her feet. Her vision whited out again when her right leg tried to hold her weight. “Please, help.”

The cops in the distance didn’t seem to hear and Lu almost sobbed when she caught sight of the flashing lights of an ambulance in the distance. “Ratchet, tend to the civilian first. Ratchet, please!”

The cops in the distance marched over to the semi and Lu found herself falling forward onto her stomach. As she fell down onto the sand, her vision began to white out again, and it was with a faintly disturbed feeling that her last thought was ‘there was no way in hell the cops just picked up the semi.’


	2. What are friends for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
> -character getting sick  
> -blood  
> -memory problems  
> -weird ass dreams
> 
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me.

Lu woke up to sand in her mouth and a dull ache in her right shoulder. Blinking, she stared out at the sand in front of her eyes and desperately tried to figure out why she would be asleep beside the parking lot behind the apartment.

Gods, she had been tired last night, but that was no reason to pass out in the middle of town!

Groaning, she pushed herself to her feet and took a glance around. Vision still a bit fuzzy, Lu stuck a hand out to the hood of her truck and did her best to stay standing as her senses fuzzed for a moment. Lord, when was the last time she had eaten?

Casting her thoughts back to search for when her last meal was, Lu looked down to her hand on the hood of the truck. She blinked again, her thoughts grinding to a halt. The truck. Her hand was on the hood of her truck. Her truck, that was not in the parking lot. Her truck, that still had high beams and a motor running.

“What the…?” Lu rasped out, her tongue still coated with sand. “What time is it?”

Stumbling forward, Lu barely managed to climb up into her cab without collapsing into an undignified heap. Had she fallen asleep at the wheel? Had she hit something? Had she been mugged?!

Forcing herself to calm down, Lu barely managed to hold onto the steering wheel as she shakily clicked her seat belts into place. The clock on her dash boasted that it was five A.M. and for a heartbeat Lu could do nothing but stare. A quick check behind the seat told her that her things were still there, if a bit jumbled around. Which, at least informed her that she certainly hadn't been mugged.

“Did I fall asleep during the photoshoot?” She mused aloud, her one hand drifting over to rub at her right palm. “But why the hell was the truck on?”

Still feeling a bit fuzzy, Lu slipped the truck into gear and drove back onto the road. Turning back towards Jasper, Lu began the rather tedious process of driving back home. All the while, she wracked her head for the missing memory of the past two or three hours. By all accounts, it didn’t make sense. She remembered packing up at one, sitting and having a coke at two, and finally getting on the road for three. Now she’s got a clock that says five in the morning, a mouth full of sand, and a nearly empty gas tank.

Her head was pounding and for the first time in years she was going just under the speed limit. Bed. She wanted to go to bed.

Later, she will think that she had to have been closer to town then she had thought, but at the time, Lu was just grateful to be pulling up to her apartment without much fuss. The apartment was just on the outskirts of town, a two story building with a convenience store on one floor and the apartment on the other. The owners had moved out of the apartment and had been looking for someone to step up. Two university kids weren’t exactly what they had been looking for, but Lu had been persuasive.

It also helped that Asher offered to work the night shift at the convenience store for the old couple in exchange for cheaper rent and minimum wage. In all, the deal wasn’t too bad, but pulling up to the store, Lu had the distinct feeling something was wrong.

Throwing the truck into park and shutting off the engine, Lu sat in the cab for a long moment as she stared at the convenience store. There was something wrong. She wasn’t sure what was off, but there was something terribly wrong with the scene in front of her. To make matters worse, between the sand in her mouth and the pounding in her head, she wasn’t even sure if she could haul herself out of the truck to figure out what was wrong.

Forcing herself to take a deep breath, Lu dragged herself up and out of the cab. Each movement jarred her shoulder and her hip, which must have seized during the drive. She couldn’t think of any other reason that her muscles were aching so badly and it wasn’t as if the shoot had been too strenuous. Hell, all she had had to do was set up her tripod and verify the settings before aiming up and shouting ‘smile’ up into the cosmos.

Still, there was something wrong and Lu was two seconds away from passing out right in the driveway, so she needed to get this over quickly. Deciding it wasn’t worth the headache, Lu grabbed the tripod from the back and shut the cab door as quietly as she could.

“Asher?” Lu called out, half wondering if it was worth calling out to the possible axe-murdered in the store. “Asher, you good?”

Hiking the tripod up on her shoulder like a baseball bat, Lu slipped forward half a step. “Asher?”

Blinking in the gloom, Lu stared at the convenience store for a long moment before it dawned on her that the twenty-four hour, seven days a week, convenience store lights were off. The tripod hit the ground with a clang.

“Asher!” Lu screamed, her mind overrun with visions of Asher strung up by her wrists or knocked out in the back end of the store. “Asher, where are you?”

“Asher!” Lu shouted, her hands shaking as she pounded on the door of the store, anxiety and terror climbing up her throat with needle-like fingers. Under her hands, the door shuddered but barely budged in the frame, and it took Lu a moment to realize that the damn thing was locked. “Shit, Asher!”

Spinning around and growling as her leg gave out for a moment, Lu stumbled around the store and to the stairs to the apartment. She had to find Asher. She had to find Asher. Oh gods, she had to find Asher. Pounding her way up the stairs, Lu dug around in her pocket for her keys and cursed her shaking hands as she fiddled with the lock. “Asher! Damnit Asher, open the freaking door!”

Finally, the key slid home, and Lu distantly Lu thought she might have hit the record for opening a front door. Under her hand, the door flung open and Lu flung her way inside, half frantic with worry that Asher was going to be dead and she was going to have to call up Asher’s mother and explain that her daughter had died in a break-in. Oh gods, Lu was going to have to explain that Asher had died.

“Asher!” Lu screamed into the dark, her panic rising as the light switch flicked uselessly under her hands.

Out of the corner of her eye, something moved in the dark. Rising her hands, Lu screamed as something heavy slammed over her wrists with a resounding crack.

“Get the fuck outta here, Dalton! I told you no!”

Lu fell back onto her aft, her optics wide as Asher slid forward, her hands raised over her head as she growled. 

“Asher! Asher no! Holy Hells, put down the crystal!” Lu screamed, her voice cracking as she coughed through grit.

“Lu?” Asher panted; her eyes still a bit wild in the terrible lighting. Slowly, the crystal lowered to her hip. “Lu? What the hell? You were supposed to be back ages ago! I thought you were that asshole Dalton.”

Still sitting on the floor, Lu eyed the crystal warily. “I see you got the big-ass crystal from Space Ace. i thought you were gonna hold off on that one ‘till it went on sale.”

Asher shifted guiltily before she turned on her heel and marched further into the apartment. “Yeah, well. The Old Man sent a bonus in the last cheque and I thought, why not?”

Slowly, the adrenaline seeped out of Lu’s blood, leaving her drained and dizzy on the floor. Shifting, Lu managed to crawl forward just enough that she could get out of the path of the doorway and slam it shut behind her. “I ain’t moving.” she groaned.

Asher ignored her from the kitchen. “Yo, did you notice the power was out?”

Lu stared at the wall in front of her even as she thumped her head back against the door frame. “Ah,” she hissed, slowly easing her leg out in front of her, “that explains the lights.”

Asher hummed, the noises from the kitchen telling Lu that she was digging around in the drawers. “Yeah, so I closed up shop cause I couldn’t get the generator to work and the phone lines are down for this half of town. You missed the whole army deployment marching through too. That was cool.”

Lu choked out a rather strangled sound of agreement. “Cool. Dalton?”

Asher slammed a drawer shut. “Yeah, the idiot came by and asked for another date. I told him to get lost again. He got a little…” she trailed off, the rant stalling as she tripped over the words.

“Rowdy? Annoying? Assholish?” Lu threw out, her eyes still closed as she tried to keep her breathing regular and steady. Gods, the leg hurt, and for some Primus’ forsaken reason, her right servos ached like the fragging pit.

“All of the above.” Asher groaned as she clicked on a flashlight.

Lu hissed at the sudden light, the brightness flooding the back of her eyelids with sparks. “Asher!” she hissed, one hand coming up to shield her now blurry vision. “Really?”

“Oh hold still Luna Bellum! You come back at almost six in the morning, there was an accident outside of town that was bad enough to take out the power, and I thought Dalton had come back to try and get lucky! So you just sit there and let me…” Asher ranted, the light sweeping across the floor to land on Lu.

The light stopped and Lu hissed, her headache dialing up from a six to a nine. “Asher, turn that thing off!”

A hand batted down Lu’s raised hands, and she snarled as Asher’s fingers dug into her jaw and twisted her head to the left.

“Lu…” Asher said, her voice a deadly calm Lu only ever associated with projects failing to be submitted at 11:59 pm due to a network connection failure. “What the hell did you do?”

“Hey! Who said I did anything?” Lu shot back in a knee-jerk reaction. “It’s not my fault all this weird stuff keeps happening to me!”

“Lu, you look like you tried to fight a bear with your face, and lost.” Asher said quietly, her hand dropping from Lu’s jaw to trace something alongside Lu’s cheek and forehead. “You have got to have one hell of a headache.”

“Really,” Lu drawled as she yanked her head away from Asher’s hands. Which was probably a mistake considering the nausea that hit the moment she moved, “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up and you can tell me what you did.” Asher soothed, her face twisting into something that had to be a mix of sympathy and amusement.

“I didn’t do anything.” Lu groaned as Asher hauled her up to her feet. One hand shooting out to the wall, Lu was half convinced the apartment just did a loop-d-loop worthy of an amusement park. “I just went to go get the photos… oh shit, the camera.” Lu’s thought process scattered seven different ways at once and as she dropped into the chair in the kitchen, she grabbed at Asher’s sleeve like a little kid. “Asher, the camera! It’s in the truck and I don’t know if I can make it back down the stairs to go get it.”

Asher gave her a long look. “Lu, I don’t even know how you made it up here. You’ve got one hell of a cut on the side of your head.”

“What?!” Lu shrieked as she bolted to the bathroom, her legs half giving out and making her crash into the walls.

From the kitchen, there was a sigh. “I’ll go get the camera.”

Lu didn’t bother to reply. Instead, she looked into the mirror and in the flickering light of the candle Asher must have lit hours ago, she stared at the right side of her face. With her left hand clamped onto the sink, Lu shakily lifted her right hand and poked at the dried blood on the side of her face. Immediately, she jerked her head away with a hiss.

What the hell had happened out in the desert?

Lu’s heart began to race as she stared at the blood. She remembered setting up the tripod and taking enough photos to fill half of her SD card. Then she swung up into the bed of her truck and opened a coke while she stared up into the sky. Then she had crawled out of the bed and climbed into the cab before driving home. Then there was something that had happened between her driving and waking up outside of the truck. But that didn’t make sense. She hadn’t left the shoot site. She hadn’t. She had swung out of the cab and sat down in front of the grill and stayed a little while in the peace and quiet and she must have fallen asleep.

But that didn’t make sense either.

In the mirror, her face was pale and drawn.

Oh gods, she was going to be sick.

Flinging herself away from the sink, Lu collapsed in front of the toilet and tried not to think about how bile made the grit in her mouth burn. Why was she covered in blood? Why was she covered in blood? Oh gods, please let it be her own blood. Please let the blood be her own. Had she hit something on the side of the road? Her camera and wallet had still been in the tuck, so it wasn’t as if she had been mugged. Oh god, what if the blood wasn’t hers?

Scrambling around, she flushed away the bile without looking and all but threw herself at the sink. Turning on the taps, the water ran cold but Lu didn’t care. She had both hands plunged into the water and it only took a second for her to shove her head under the tap too. The bile washed away from her mouth even as she scrubbed at her face.

Watching the red run down the sides of the sink was almost hypnotic and in a morbid way, Lu could almost convince herself that she was washing away hair-dye or paint.

“Jesus! Lu, are you trying to drown yourself?” Asher hollered as she hauled Lu out from under the sink. “Lu, what the hell are you doing?”

The woman staring back at her in the mirror looked like a terrible halloween version of Lu. There were scratches down the right side of her face and beside her eye there looked like a nasty oozing section of skin. If her hair hadn’t been shorn so short to begin with, it wouldn’t have been hard to imagine her scalp having missing chunks.

“Woah, you went through the ringer.” Asher commented, her eyebrows raising as she thunked the first-aid kit onto the counter. “What did you say happened?”

Lu stared at the woman in the mirror and tried to think why the face looking back looked so wrong. There was a headache pounding at her temples and a whisper in her ears that if she just looked closer, she would be able to run a diagnostic and figure out what was wrong. If she could just focus her optics and gain equilibrium in her processors…

“Lu, you good kid?” Asher asked, startling Lu out of her thoughts.

“Hm?” Lu mused, her optics refocusing on the multi-coloured punk standing beside her. “What was that Ratchet? Did Bumblebee antagonize Sideswipe again?”

Asher stared at her for a moment, before shaking her head and opening the first-aid box. “Alright. You got new characters bouncing around up there?”

“Hmmm, Ratchet, be nicer to the youngling.” Lu hissed as Ratchet pressed some gauze against the side of his head. Ratchet was always going around in such a mood, and Primus knew Bumblebee didn’t need anymore reasons not to go into the medic’s domain.

“Gods, I hope that’s not a concussion talking.” Ratchet growled, his voice filtering through Lu’s processor with an odd lilt to it. “But hey, on the bright side, you might just have a weird storyline in the morning if you remember any of this.”

Lu listed to the side for a moment, her brow scrunching up as she realized that at some point Asher had pushed her down to sit on the side of the tub. “How’d I get here?” Lu asked, her hand coming up to the side of her head as Asher all but slapped a bandaid on her temple. “Ratchet, I don’t fit in apartments!”

“Oh yeah, that had better not be a concussion.” Asher muttered. “Lu, you think you’re gonna be sick?”

Lu stared at the purple lipstick on Asher’s mouth. That was such a pretty colour. Letting go of her temple, Lu reached forward and poked the other girl on the forehead before twisting her hand and running her fingers through the pink hair in front of her vision. “Colours!” She whisper-shouted in awe. “Ratchet, look at the pretty colours the humans can put in their hair!”

“Be grateful I’m not a petty person and taking photos.” Asher grumbled as she slipped an arm under Lu’s shoulders and untangled Lu’s fingers from her hair. “Let’s get you to bed, eh?”

Lu placed her head on Asher’s shoulder with a happy hum. “I hadn’t expected all the pretty colours.” she sighed, a thread of giddy excitement curling through her ribs and lungs. “I think that’s the part I enjoy most about this planet, there are so many colours and it changes all the time!”

“Uh huh,” Ratchet said with a roll of his optics, “I guess I should be grateful we’re not at home. If you saw a tree right now with all the fall colours, you’d be a drooling mess.”

Lu hummed again, almost falling out of Ratchet’s hold when her berth came into view. Stumbling out of the tangle of limbs, Lu all but threw herself at the mess of blankets and pillows. She wasn’t sure how but between herself and Asher, they managed to get her curled up in a corner with the blankets pulled up to to the bottom of her helm.

Lu was more concerned with the fuzzy blanket under her digits. “Look Ratchet, it’s so soft!” her voice was low as she slid her finger over the blanket again. “I didn’t think there could be anything this soft.”

“Oh boy.” Ratchet muttered, his head shaking as he made a shove over motion with his hands. “Move. I don’t think I’m gonna sleep without knowing if you’re still breathing.”

Lu made a happy sound as she shoved herself back against the wall and lifted up the blankets. “Cuddles!”

Asher flopped down with a smile and tucked the blanket back up to Lu’s chin. “Oh lord, what are you going to do when Apollo comes to bed?”

Curled up in the bed, a happy tangle of limbs and comfort, Lu breathed out a sigh, only frowning as her temple gave another throb. It was a good night. Her stomach wasn’t twisting up into knots, the others were all safe, and Ratchet was calm.

It was a good night.

Lu snuggled deeper into the bed.

“Here we go.” Ratchet chuckled into her hair.

Something touched her hip and Lu shot straight up as she threw herself over Asher. “By Primus’ will, may you rot in the depths of the Pit, you slagging fragged aft!”

On her hip, Apollo meowed.

Lu’s optics opened wide and her mouth dropped open. “Oh my god, he’s so fluffy!”

Asher laughed so hard she fell out of the bed.

Lu smiled even as she held her fingers out for Apollo to sniff. It was going to be a good night, she could just feel it.

…***...

Lu sat in the middle of the temple steps and tried to ignore the way her servos shook. She was just a data clerk in a rusted corner of Lacon. She wasn’t anything special. She wasn’t. She wasn’t sparked for greatness. She wasn’t sparked as a noble or an alpha. She wasn’t supposed to be here, to be moving in the circles of the great temple or with those who held the ear of the Prime.

She wasn’t supposed to be here.

A servo dropped an energon treat into her digits. “Thought you were supposed to be smarter than this.”

Lu fumbled with the treat for a moment, her helm dropping as she realized who had just sat down beside her. “High Lord Protector.” She rasped, doing her best to keep her voice level, “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Megatronus gave out a booming laugh, his helm tilting back as he sprawled out on the steps. “I’m your High Lord Protector, Prime. You and me, we made this. A data clerk and a gladiator. We made it. We changed it all. We made it better. You’re making it better.” He gave her a crooked smile, a small little thing that she only ever saw on the days where they didn’t have to argue with the nobles or tear through the temple to make things right.

To make things better.

“No more caste system.” Lu murmured as she nibbled at her treat. “No more pits.”

Megatronus hummed an agreement, the sound at odds with his scarred and dented appearance. “Life and liberty for all.”

“Something to fight for.” Lu echoed back, her processors flipping through previous conversations and thoughts.

“Something to live for.” Megatronus countered, his own energon treat rolling between his servos.

Venting, Lu forced herself to stand up. It was going to be a long vorn and she really wasn’t looking forward to arguing that yes, the Gemmas really did deserve to have proper housing and ample opportunities. Primus, if Lu didn’t bash a few heads together then she might just let Megatronus bash a few for her.

At least it would be amusing.

“Together, my friend?” Lu asked, her digits curling up slightly in offering as she turned to Megatronus.

On the steps, Megatron stood, spikes adorning his armour and his sword held aloft instead of in stasis in subspace.

“Always.” Megatronus rasped even as Megatron slammed the sword home in Lu’s torso. “Always.”

…***...

On the bed, Lu woke up screaming.


	3. Would you like fries with that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody!  
> Ok, I have some notes for this chapter. First is that I have a headcannon that cypertonians don't actually have names as much as they have a 'frequency' that describes them. I always thought it was how they would be able to identify each other on the internal comms. Since this doesn't translate over into english or other spoken languages, they just took the closest thing they could find in the language they used at the time. In this case, it would be english.  
> So, Lu has a mix up of names and frequencies in her head and yeah, its about as confusing for her as it is for everyone else.  
> Second, any time you see and underline and italized section, thats when someone is speaking cybertonian  
> Third, as always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

For a moment, all Lu could do was scream. How could he? How could he take his sword, the sword he had sworn on, to protect their people, and try and shove it through her spark chamber? How could he? Fury curled through her veins and all Lu could do was sit tangled in her sheets and try not to sob.

He tried to kill her.

He tried to kill her and he almost succeeded.

The door to her room flew open. “Once again, Roland stopped by earlier and said until the power grids were completely stable and the surges stopped, you weren’t going into work.”

Lu stopped flailing in her sheets, her hands clasping at her chest as she stared at the exasperated woman in the doorway. For a moment, all Lu could do was stare. The horror and betrayal of the dream slowly ebbed out of her veins and she was left sitting like an empty husk on her bed. “What?” she finally managed to croak.

Asher gave her a once over. “Oh good, you're actually awake this time. You woke up a few times this morning, but you weren’t making a lot of sense, so I figured I’d just let you sleep.”

It was a sad mark of their lives that the fact Lu had been terribly incoherent and it wasn’t too concerning. Not for the first time, Lu wondered if she should check if anyone kept spiking her drinks. Considering the vivid dreams she was constantly plagued with, it was a distinct possibility. Lu blinked and kicked her way out of the bed to rise unsteadily to her feet. “Did I pull another all-nighter?” she groaned, her head pounding and her hip and shoulder aching with every movement. “I feel like I pulled another all-nighter on one of those stupid Latin translations.”

Asher grimaced, her hands twisting a drying towel round in and around. “Nope.”

Lu hummed, her head putting up a protest at moving too quickly. “Powers out?”

Asher shook her head and threw the towel over her shoulder. “Wow, you really don’t remember do you?”

It was a knee-jerk reaction to playfully flip Asher off while Lu dug through her clean laundry on the chair for a reasonably unrumpled outfit. Asher snorted and turned around to give Lu some privacy. “Yeah, so, any memories from last night?”

Tangled up in her shirt, Lu winced at the headache beginning to pound at her temples and behind her eyes. “No, why? You take pictures or something?”

It wasn’t as if she was hungover, Lu hadn’t drank in months and it wasn’t as if she was about to start again. She had done enough of the drinking when she had gone away for first year, besides, it wasn’t as if she was legal here. Being legal in one country and then being told that twenty wasn’t enough to let her drink down here in the south, was confusing. There were the fines to think about too, if she did decide to start drinking and that was not something she could afford.

“No, but you did get some nice shots of the stars last night.” Asher admitted from the kitchen table, one hand gesturing to the waiting cup of hot chocolate on the counter. She was cradling a cup of tea in her hands and poking at something on her computer. Lu had to take a moment and praise whatever god watching for them having a gas stove and a ready supply of matches. “I’m just touching them up now and then I’ll send ‘em out when the net is back up. Should get a cheque in the mail on Wednesday.”

Lu paused where she was hovered over the hot chocolate, her brow furrowing as she side-eyed Asher. “I didn’t go out last night.” she said slowly, the bottom of her stomach dropping out when Asher gave her an unimpressed look.

Dropping down into a seat, Lu stared at the steam rising up out of her mug and rubbed a hand against her temple. She remembered getting home from the library and gathering up her gear for the photoshoot out in the boonies. Then she remembered going down to the store and poking her head in to tell Asher she was going out.

Then she…

She…

“Let me see those.” Lu commanded, trying to ignore how her hands shook and her voice wobbled. There was something inherently terrifying about the fact that she didn’t know where or what she had been doing the night before. Silently, Asher turned the laptop around and Lu stared at the, admittedly, good photos of the night sky. It was like a compulsion to flip through the photos, her mind whirling as she tried to match the photographs to a memory.

Eventually, Lu was forced to sit back and stare at the tabletop. “I don’t remember any of these.”

“Huh,” Asher commented slowly as she swirled a teaspoon around in her mug. “I’m not judging, but when was the last time you slept?”

If Lu’s headache wasn’t pounding behind her temples or the panic of the situation wasn’t making her brain run a hundred miles and hour, she would have given Asher a dirty look. As it was, the question was valid. Lu was known for being unable to sleep for anywhere from twenty-four to seventy-two hours at a time. Losing memories or having dreams blend into reality wasn’t as uncommon as she might have hopped.

“I got a solid six hours yesterday.” Lu drawled, already wincing at the fact that one possible reason for the missing memories was already thrown out the window. “Was anything off when I came home?”

The fact Asher paled and became as still as a statue did not help Lu’s blood pressure. “Asher, I swear to god…”

“I thought you remembered that much at least!” Asher protested, her eyes wide as she stared at something just to the right of Lu’s head.

No, wait, Asher wasn’t staring at something behind Lu. She was staring at Lu. “Oh fucking hell,” Lu swore as she stumbled out of her seat and towards the bathroom, “did someone come at me with a marker?”

The mirror in the bathroom revealed that Lu had attempted to fight a cactus and lost. Her mouth dropped open in a mixture of surprise and terror. What the hell had she done the night before? Lu raised a trembling hand to her temple and winced as her fingers brushed gauze.

She met Asher’s eyes over her shoulder in the mirror. “What did I do?”

For a moment, Asher looked very small and lost. “I don’t know.” she eventually settled on, her lips pulled into a thin line. “I had really been hoping you would tell me.”

Lu scrubbed a hand down the uncut side of her face and tried not to scream when the sleeve of her sweater rode up on her arms. “Asher! Asher please tell me you drew on me when I was asleep!”

Lu would forever deny the hysteria threading through her voice.

“What? No!” Asher shouted as she barreled into the bathroom. “What the hell? When did you get ink?”

Wasn’t that the question of the hour, Lu thought a little desperately as she stared down at the colour on her arm and tried to will it out of existence. Slowly, Lu grabbed at her wrist and looked up to Asher in desperation. “It’s not sore. That means I couldn’t have gotten it yesterday right? Right? It hurts for twenty-four hours or aches, or something like that?”

Asher shook her head and threw her hands up in the air. “Does it look like I have ink? My mother would murder me, and wouldn’t you know? You’re the one with a freaking sleeve!”

Lu looked down at her right arm and tried to figure out why in the nine-hells she would have a fully coloured flame sleeve spiraling up from her wrist to her shoulder. Rather hysterically, Lu stuck her arm under the tap and scrubbed at the ink. Later, Lu would deny breathing out a sigh of relief when the ink faded a bit under her furious scrubbing.

“Maybe I drew it on?” Lu breathed, her blood still rushing through her ears. “I mean, even I can draw flames. Right?”

Asher gave her a slow nod. “It’s a possibility.”

“Ok.” Lu breathed as she dried off her arm and shoved her sleeve back down. “Ok. How ‘bout we go get some food? You said the power has been flickering on and off, but the K.O has to have a generator and at least that’s something.”

By this point, it was almost route to go to the K.O Burger anytime something happened. Got a passing grade? K.O Burgers. Failed a class? K.O Burger. Needed something while pulling an overnighter and still had three more days of work to drudge through? You guessed it, K.O Burger.

“You just want fries.” Asher poked at her weakly, her face still drawn and worried. “You’d do anything for fries.”

Lu appreciated the attempt at normalcy. “You got it.” She rasped, grabbing her keys and wallet off the counter as she threw on her boots.

The mystery of the cuts and bruises could wait. Hell, even the mysterious ink could wait. The cops weren’t banging down their door and Lu was rather positive she would remember if she had done anything too illegal. Besides, she really did want to grab some fries.

Pausing midway through lacing up her boots as a sudden thought bounced through her head. “Yo, is it even late enough to be socially acceptable to get fries, or am I gonna be ordering home fries and hash browns?”

Asher choked on what sounded suspiciously like a giggle. “It’s one in the afternoon. You can get fries.”

From there, it was a simple matter of getting out the door and walking down the stairs. K.O. Burger was only about a twenty minute walk away and with the way gas prices had been going lately, it was easier to walk then it was to take the truck. Besides, Lu had always processed better when moving and considering the sledgehammer of a morning she had had already, she figured she was gonna need a hell of a walk to even attempt to order her thoughts. There was also the fact her hands were still shaking and getting behind the wheel was enough to make her want to lean over and be sick in the hedges.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Asher commented as she linked her arm through Lu’s, a jovial smile crossing over her face, “who’s Ratchet?”

( _ “First and foremost, old friend, I am a medic. I do not take sides.” A servo landed harshly on the berth and all Lu could see was the energon stains on the joints of his digits. “Do not ask of me, what I can not give.” _ )

It took a moment for Lu to realize that the tugging on her arm wasn’t from a welding stick or a coolant gel, and instead from Asher’s arm as the other woman skipped along beside her. Biting at her lip, Lu shook her head, even as she let the sudden vision fade away from behind her eyes. She had too much of a headache to try and pursue more of what looked to be a rather interesting snippet of a story at that very moment. Still, the scene seemed to jumble up and around in her brain and Lu had always been a sucker for a good story.

“No clue,” Lu said, her mind still teasing the vision for more details and trying to commit the way the berth looked under silver hands and why the purple and blue stains seemed to be an indication of something much worse then the typical red rust pooling out on the ground. “I had a weird dream last night. Could be a new character bouncing around up there.”

Asher hummed, her eyes growing a bit distant as she pulled back into herself. “You were muttering about them last night. I thought it sounded like a new character but eh, I wasn’t too sure and well...” she gestured to the side of Lu’s head as an apology.

“Yeah, that’s fair.” Lu offered, her hand absently coming up to brush the side of her skull. “Anyway, should we move on to…”

She trailed off, her jaw dropping as she took in the sight of her truck. “Oh my god, what hit me?” she squeaked, her arm snaking out of Asher’s hold as she bolted to the crumpled back end of the box. “Where’s my tailgate?”

“Nevermind that,” Asher hissed, her hands hovering over the backend of the truck. “What the hell happened to the bumper and your license plate?”

Lu grabbed onto the side of the box and stared at the crumpled frame of her truck. “I don’t remember this happening…” she said softly, her head twisting to the side as she desperately tried to look around the parking lot, “and I don’t see any debris here…”

“So, whatever happened, didn’t happen here.” Asher concluded, her eyes turning into something flinty. “And you wouldn’t have left the site of an accident without calling for help…”

( _ The road was long and the thrill of the chase had long since dwindled into something akin to obligation rather than choice. This was supposed to be something routine, a regular sweep that occurred every few days to help out their fellow associates in NEST. He hadn’t expected to actually find anything on patrol, no more than he had expected to see a set of headlights lighting up the normally empty east-bound lane. _ )

(“ _ 10-9?” Lu called, her hand hovering over the radio just in case the nobs had been changed during the accident. “10-9, please repeat.” _ )

“I...I did? I did. I think?” Lu mumbled, her hands rubbing at her temples as the memories curled up from the depths of her mind. “I called for help…”

( _ She tried to climb up to her feet but every time she moved, her vision fuzzed and her hip and arm screamed at her. In the distance, between the darkening edges of her vision and the starbursts from the jarring movements, she could see an ambulance. She could see the flashing lights. There was help coming. She would make it out of this alive. _ )

She looked over at Asher, her head pounding and bile climbing up her throat. “I...I don’t think they saw me. I think they left me there.”

“They left you there.” Asher repeated, her fingers curling into something that looked a bit too much like talons for Lu's peace of mind. Lu had been on the wrong side of those talons before, typically during the middle of midterms, but either way, she was not in the mood for a repeat experience.

Lu took a step back.

“Yeah, I mean, I think so?” Lu desperately tried to downplay the situation but Asher seemed to be having none of it.

“You saw an ambulance?” Asher pressed. And oh boy, yup, there were the talons.

( _ He vented softly. Ratchet. Ratchet was here. Ratchet the Hatchet. Although Primus knew that if anyone even whispered those words in the medic's comm range or hearing, there would be hell to pay. Still, Ratchet was there. The medic who had stayed so faithfully by his side, even when others had turned away. Even when  _ he  _ had cast them all aside. _ )

“There was an ambulance.” Lu agreed, unaware that there was a soft smile crossing her face. “There was always an ambulance.”

Asher didn’t seem to notice the wistful tone of Lu’s voice and instead rapped her knuckles on the truck. “The insurance company is only open on weekdays, right?”

Lu hummed, her hand dropping down as she noticed an odd scrape in the body of the truck. Let Asher worry about the lack of an ambulance or the appearance of one at all. Lu was just choosing to be grateful that she wasn’t having to dig through papers to prove her medical insurance through the exchange program would in fact cover a car accident. (If there had been an accident at all, Lu still wasn’t very clear on the details.) Leaning down, Lu raised a hand towards the scrape, her fingers almost  _ tingling  _ as she brushed them over the overlaid scratches.

“Great. So, we take photos, get the file ready for Monday, and…Lu, what are you doing?”

Startled, Lu flinched back from the design. “What? Sorry.”

Asher simply shook her head and jerked a hand towards the road. “Let's just go get some food. It's not like the truck is gonna just disappear on us.”

“Yeah, ok.” Lu agreed, her hand itching as she pulled away from the truck. “Fries. Let’s go get fries.”

Asher almost seemed disquieted by the easy agreement but it only took a few steps for Lu to yank the other woman into other topics. It wasn’t hard, not really. Lu knew just what buttons to push and what phrases to mutter to get Asher worked up enough all Lu had to do was ‘oh' and ‘aw' at the right parts.

That wasn’t to say what Asher said wasn’t important or otherwise engaging, but Lu was a bit more concerned about the smashed up truck then she was willing to admit. And, there was also the problem of what might happen if some nosy neighbour or customer saw their truck and tried to be  _ kind  _ and call the authorities about a stolen vehicle. Lu had all the proper paperwork and everything was in order, but she and Asher were also exchange students and the last thing she needed was the cops pounding on her door, even if it was in an effort to be helpful.

Jasper was typically a quiet town, well, the residents were quiet. In truth, Jasper was a commuter town, what with the military base just on the northern outskirts and the college to the west. The main core of Jasper never seemed to change, but the outskirts? They rotated almost daily with new faces and new groups. Still, when compared to Toronto or some other big city, Jasper was down right cuddly and quaint. It rather reminded Lu of home.

Yet, the further they walked, the more Lu swore there was something different about the street. The difference wasn’t something she could point out easily, but spinning around in place she looked down the street and clenched her jaw shut. There was nothing but beat up old cars and the usual amount of residents running around. Still, something scuttled up from the base of her spine and wrapped spindly fingers around the nape of her neck.

Running a hand up her arm, Lu told herself the difference was due to the flickering lights and the sound of generators kicking on and off. 

( _ A servo clamped down on his helm and twisted him to the right. “Focus, Orion. If your processor is clanging something is wrong, then something is wrong.” _ )

It had to be the sound of the generators.

Still, Lu tucked her arm back into Asher’s and all but dragged her towards the doors of K.O. Her stomach was growling, her head was pounding, and once she got food in her stomach, she’d feel so much better. All she needed to do was to get her blood sugar evened back out and all would be good.

Lu could practically taste the fries from where she stood.

Stepping off the curb and getting ready to reach for the doors of K.O., Lu stopped dead. Warmth curled around her ribs and slid over her heart. For a moment, Lu couldn’t breathe through the sudden affection that purred through her veins. Her eyes slid to the motorcycle parked in one of the staff spots.

Asher cursed as she stumbled awkwardly to a halt, but rolled her eyes and followed Lu’s gaze without much fuss. “Hey, isn’t that Jay’s, wait, no, Jerry’s bike? You know, the kid with the dark hair and the fringe that desperately needs a cut?”

Lu barely heard her, instead, she hummed something that might have been an agreement as she slipped away from Asher. “God, she's beautiful.” Lu whispered in genuine awe, her hands hovering over the bike but otherwise not touching.

Lu wasn’t as well versed in bikes as she was with the classics. Hell, half of what she knew was from her uncles and Opa swapping stories about various shows and tests they had taken over the years. If Lu didn’t know better, she’d say the bike was custom, built for speed and maneuverability, rather than to be loud and mean. But there was no way in hell little Jack could afford such a bike, not on student wage and part time hours.

Some of the apprehension slid out of Lu’s bones the longer she stood in front of the bike. “You think she has a name?”

Asher rolled her eyes to the sky. “Not to be the downer in this conversation, but you know most people don’t name their vehicles, right?”

Lu shrugged, one hand coming up to wave away the admonishment. “Yeah, but such a pretty little lady needs a name.”

“Lu, I’m not gonna name someone else’s bike. ‘Sides, Jerry? Jay? Whoever, probably already named it.” Asher hissed, arms crossed over her chest. “Can we get inside before someone thinks we’re gonna steal the damn thing?”

Lu stood still, her hand still hovering over the impeccable paint job. There was something embossed onto the frame, something Lu had seen before. Her fingers dipped a little lower, slightly hovering over the design. Maybe if she just shifted a little to the right, she’d be able to see the design clearly.

( _ The femme slid neatly into his unit as if she had always existed in their bonds. She brought a sharp wit, a partner that could rival a wrecker on a bad day, and an ability to move so silently, she could rival the best of their scouts. She never said where she was from, but he rather thought he knew. No one became that jaded in Lacon without having waded through the pits at least once. _ )

“Fidelis.” Lu whispered, her eye barely catching the full extent of the embossing. It looked a bit like a face. A bit like something she had seen before.

“What?” Asher broke into her thoughts. “What did you say?”

“Her name.” Lu answered absently, something in the back of her mind screaming that that wasn’t the right answer. It wasn’t the best fit, but at the same time it, fidelis, was everything. “Fidelis. Loyal. It’s what she is.”

“Yeah, alright soothsayer, let’s go get some fries.” Asher huffed in exasperation as she hauled Lu back by her collar. “We came here for fries and damnit, now I’m hungry.”

There was no point in arguing as she was dragged off towards K.O., but Lu still scrambled around a bit to find her feet as Asher flung them both through the door. The warmth that had hugged her when she had first seen the bike, had yet to fade and it only grew as she turned around and saw Jack at the till.

Lu chalked it up to finally being able to smell the fries.

Shaking Asher off, Lu bounced up to the till with a wide grin. “Heya Jackie!”

At the till, the poor boy seemed to be hunched into himself and rather pale. Turning up the megawatt smile, Lu leaned on the counter and thanked the deities that K.O. seemed oddly empty. Typically the boy snarled and hissed like an angry cat when Lu called him Jackie, but Lu knew he actually didn’t mind the nickname, niot when he always seemed to brighten whenever Lu or Asher walked into K.O.

“One large fry and a regular coke.” Jack droned, one hand coming up to scrub at his eyes.

Lu tsked and looked over at Asher. “Should we be concerned that he knows my order off by heart?”

Asher huffed something in reply and looked up to the ceiling in an attempt to hide her smile.

“What are you going to do if I ever order a frosty or something else instead?” Lu demanded playfully, her head tilting to the side in concern the longer Jack seemed to avoid her gaze. “Oh come on Jack, what’s wrong?”

Jack clenched his jaw and for a moment, Lu wondered if the boy was going to snap at her. He did look awful, and it was a legitimate concern if he had slept at all in the last twenty-four hours from the bags under his eyes.

Something in Lu’s chest unwound and she reached into her pocket to pull out her wallet. Five bucks later, she had a receipt for her order. As Jack reached back to slide a tray down the counter, Lu reached forward, grabbed at his hand, and ignored his yelp. She slipped a twenty into his hand. She didn’t say anything as he looked between the twenty and her face and back again. What could she say, ‘hey you look like shit, go buy yourself something to eat?’ no there wasn’t anything she could do aside from give him the most understanding look she could manage.

Jack seemed to be stuck in place for a moment before he leaned towards her. “Lu, you look like you took a fragging cactus to the face.”

Well, so much for being compassionate.

Behind her, Asher began to laugh hard enough Lu knew she would be holding onto the counter and wheezing before long. Still, all Lu could do was roll her eyes and shrug in a ‘what can you do?’ manner. “Wild night.” She eventually settled on.

Jack shook his head as he put her coke down on the tray. “Yeah, no kidding. Heard some one swerved into a pole outside of town. Thankfully, mum and I are on a separate grid.”

( _ Lu reached over to fiddle with the radio. Her eyes were off the road for only an instant. An instant was all it took. _ )

“You don’t say?” Lu hummed as she grabbed a straw from the dispenser and slowly tore into the paper packaging. “Anyone hurt?”

( _ “Buddy? You good?” Lu shouted, her blood screaming in her ears even as she desperately tried to see through the gloom to the power lines and the telephone pole. “Buddy, if you can hear me, say something! I’ll even take a good old fashion cursing!” _ )

Jack seemed to hesitate, his hands stilling on where he was about to grab Lu’s fries. It was only for an instant, but Lu swore his shoulders tensed and his eyes closed. The bags under his eyes suddenly seemed rather stark in comparison to the rest of his pale features. Lu’s stomach dropped down to her shoes.

“Who died?” Lu whispered, her body tensing for a blow.

( _ “Ratchet.” He hissed, his comms still staticy after the last squirmish. “Ratchet, tell me old friend. Who died?” _ )

Jack put the fries down with a sigh. “Nobody, as far as we know. But, well, a friend of mine, he went missing.”

Asher stopped laughing and Lu swore the room darkened. Missing teenagers, bloodied cheeks, torn bumpers? Could this day get any worse? But, Jack looked tense and something about the way he held himself, the way his hands flexed on the till as if to keep himself from running off into the Nevada desert, dumped ice down her spine.

“Ah slag. Want me and Asher to keep an eye out? What was the guy wearing?” Lu offered suddenly, her mouth running faster then her brain. She didn’t actually have time for this, didn’t have time to be looking for someone that the cops had to be combing the streets for, but at the same time she couldn’t just leave the boy looking like that.

Besides, how hard could it be to keep an eye out for a runaway teenager?

Jack’s head shot up and he pinned Lu with a wildeyed look Lu only expected to see from little kids running around the library before they were tugged out screaming by their parents. Slowly, Lu turned to look at Asher. The other woman had the same grim look that Lu would bet good money was on her own face.

“Jack.” Lu said, her hands coming down to rest softly on the counter. For some reason her stomach curled at the thought that Jack was in some form of trouble. That he might be in more trouble than he could handle alone. “Jack, I’m not going to judge and I’m not going to lecture you, but are you safe?”

Jack shuddered and that was all Lu needed. Behind her ribs, a snarling beast padded and roared at the thought that Jack was going to be hurt. “Is it your mum?” Lu asked as calmly as she could. “Is your mum ok?”

Jack quickly shook his head. “No, no. It’s not my mom. My friend, he, well…” he trailed off, his face screwing up with secrets he couldn’t say and lies he was struggling to sell.

An old hand at the very same problem, Lu patted the boy’s hand with her own. “Jackie, is your friend in trouble with the law?”

From the afronted and slightly hysterical expression that crossed Jack’s face, Lu had the feeling the very thought of his friend being in trouble with the law was not just amusing, but slim. At least there was one problem less to worry about. Behind her ribs, the snarling dimmed down to a more manageable level.

“No. No.” Jack denied quickly, a thread of laughter undercutting his voice. “No, my friend, he came from what you might call a…”

This time it was Asher who leaned forward on the counter. “Family trouble then.” She offered, a wry grin on her face. “Yeah, me and Lu get that.”

The two women shared a long look before Lu dipped her head in acceptance. “Look, Jack. If your buddy is on the straight and narrow, and you know where he is, but you don’t think sending him home is a good idea, we got a couch. But he’s gotta be clean, we’re renting the place.”

For a moment, Jack almost looked taken back, his eyes wide and his mouth opening and closing a bit too quickly for him to be able to stutter anything. Eventually the kid managed to just shove the tray at Lu. “I don’t know where he is!” he all but shouted.

Asher caught the tray, no judgement on her face. “We’re not saying you do, we’re just letting you know we have a couch if you or your buddy needs it.”

Waving at Jack, Lu and Asher walked back to what they privately referred to as ‘their’ table. It was a cozy little booth in the back that let them see the only reason why they ever came to O.K. The booth had direct access to the twenty-four hour news station that was constantly on the T.V. in the corner of K.O.

Lu shoved a fry in her mouth. “Notice how he never answered who the missing kid was?” She mused around the fry.

Asher stuck her tongue out but that didn’t stop the frown that crawled across her face. “Yeah, but we did all we could. Now, it's up to him.”

Lu leaned back and swore softly. It didn’t feel right letting this go, but it wasn’t as if she could poke her nose in either. She was, after all, just a regular customer that never interacted with the kid outside of work. She had probably already crossed enough boundaries as it was.

Maybe it was time to work on something else, something that wasn’t as distressing.

“So,” Lu began as she tugged out a notepad and pen from the back of Asher’s bag. “I’ve got this new story.”

Asher grabbed a fry and tilted her head. “Ohhh, do tell. This has been bugging me since you mistook me as Ratchet last night.”

Staring down at the notebook, Lu shook her head. “Ratchet isn’t the main character, I don’t think? He’s important, but in a ‘he’s my best buddy and has my back even though the planet blew up’ kinda way.”

( _ “Will you stand beside me, old friend?” He asked. _ )

( _ Ratchet snorted, his servos stilling on the various tools on the berth. It was a pitiful amount, a tiny little fraction of what Ratchet was used to having at his disposal. Yet, these were only tools of their kind now. What with the mass evacuation and the loss of their home. “Is there any other choice, my Prime?” _ )

Asher whistled, her eyebrows rising. “The planet blew up?”

Lu rubbed a hand against her forehead. “I don’t...no. But it’s not inhabitable. Look, all I’ve got is that there was this war, and it was over a caste system and a rebellion against the government that was systematically dismantling the services and support systems for the lower classes. And, there’s this guy, I don’t know his name. But, well, he manages to overthrow the old system, and do it legally.” She jabbed the pen at the notebook, her teeth grinding as she tried to poke at the train of thought in her head.

( _ It was still so odd, being called Prime. He wasn’t a Prime, he couldn’t be. He was just a data clerk from who scored big in Lacon. _ )

“But, it didn’t work.” Asher commented as she grabbed a sip from the coke, long used to having to wait out the plotline and pitfalls of a story as Lu tried to detangle the path in her head. “Or, at least not for long?”

Lu shot her a small smile. “Of course not, then there wouldn’t be a story, would there?”

( _ He sat with his helm in his servos and wondered how it all went wrong. How he hadn’t seen the betrayal coming. He should have seen it coming. He should have known. But he hadn’t. Had their Golden Age made him compliant? Had he fallen into the same trappings of his predecessors? Had he become what he hated most? _ )

“Oh yes,” Asher mused with patient humour, “torture the characters and make everything so much worse. I name thee a writer.”

( _ “With the power of those who have come before, I name thee Prime…” _ )

Lu fought a smile and she gave Asher a sly wink. “You know me so well, darling.” Her hands fell over her heart and she pouted. “But yeah, it went well for a while and this guy, he had the system overturned and was working on making everything better when his buddy,”

“Ratchet?” Asher guessed, her head tilting to the side. “Please tell me it wasn’t Ratchet.”

“No,” Lu drawled, “it wasn’t Ratchet. It was this other guy. My main’s brother? I don’t know, I'll figure that out later. But this guy, he creates another faction. I don’t know if he just went power mad, if there was this mystical illness typebullshit that made him screwy, or if it was mind control, or some godforsaken mix of all of ‘em.” Lu rubbed at her head again and tried to ignore the colour on her wrist that shone on her skin when the sleeve rolled down again.

( _ He had not felt such anger in vorns. The energon in his body boiled and there was no going back. Not from this. This wasn’t just anger, this was rage. This was hatred. Hatred, such a dangerous emotion, but in this case, entirely justified. All those sparklings. How could he? His brother? It was one thing to attack fully grown scouts, it was another to smother a sparklings’ spark chamber and leach them dry. _ )

“Sounds fun. A power mad clown trying to take over the world.” Asher laughed, her shoulders shaking as she tried to reign in her laughter. “What is it with you and having characters that want to take over the world?”

Lu rolled her eyes again and decided that question didn’t deserve a reasonable answer. “Anyway,” she cut across, “Big Bad went wacko and Main had to step in to take him down, but the war just kept escalating. And then, Main, well, I think Main and his buddies ended up having to leave?”

( _ He vented softly before activating his comms. “Sound the retreat to all units.” There was no time to doubt the necessity of the order. _ )

Lu paused for a moment, her fingers drumming on the table as she tried to connect the pieces together. Thankfully, Asher left her to her own thoughts. Eventually, she snapped her fingers in excitement. “Yeah, they left ‘cause the planet was uninhabitable. But, so did the other guys. And, they kept fighting this war across different worlds, clashing again and again, ‘cause you know, meanings of war lost to time and all that jazz. And, you know, eventually, they came here.”

( _ How many worlds would this foolish war ruin? How many worlds needed to suffer the fate of their own planet? He had seen so many sights. Had witnessed the birth of stars and deaths of planets. He had seen so much and he would give it all up if this foolish war would simply end. _ )

“To Jasper, Nevada?” Asher drawled, suddenly looking distinctly unimpressed.

Lu ate another fry. “No, to earth. Why the hell would they come to Jasper?”

Asher gave her a look but didn’t argue. Instead, she leaned forward and tapped the notebook Lu had been absently doodling in. “So, what’s this?”

Confused, Lu looked down to see the same face that had been haunting her all day. The one she had seen etched into the scratches of her truck and the same one she had seen on…

Lu’s heartbeat kicked into high gear.

( _ We call them Cons because they are deceptive and conmen. In this tongue, you would call them confidence men of the highest order. Criminals with no regard for life or liberty. _ )

Slowly, Lu looked out the window to the parking lot. She hadn’t thought about it since she and Asher had walked into the parking lot, but there had been something out there that had made her nervous. There had been something out there that had made the back of her mind sit up and take notice.

Outside, Fidelis sat in her parking spot as pretty as you please. Behind her, there were twin sport cars, R/T models if Lu had any bet. That wasn’t so strange a sight, not when there had been sport cars tearing in and out of Jasper since the day Lu had driven into down with a beat up old farm truck.

No, what was strange was that these R/Ts had the same license plates.

Without taking her eyes off the cars, Lu slowly reached down into Asher’s bag and pulled out her cell phone. Due to the sheer cost, having two cell phones wasn’t feasible, so at any one time, there was only one activated between the two women. They had both agreed to only use it for emergencies.

Asher made a noise of protest but Lu simply shot a hand out and grabbed her by the wrist as she typed in a phone number without looking. “Get Jack.” She hissed, her eyes narrowing as the line began to ring. “Get Jack and tell him, his pretty little baby is gonna be steamrolled if she don’t stand up and shove a ped up those idiot’s aft.”

There must have been something in her voice, because Asher stood up and bolted for the counter without protesting, her bag already strapped onto her back before she was even out of the booth.

“Who is this?” A discontent voice ordered from the other side of the line.

For some reason, Lu found herself fighting a smile. Everything would be alright as long as the old mech continued to grump his way through the cosmos. There was nothing that [Healer of Sparks and Frames] Ratchet could not fix. “Hello, Old Friend.” She whispered, her eyes narrowing as she noticed one of the R/Ts surging forward inch by inch. “Your femme is down here waiting for her partner at K.O. and two vehicons are stalking her.”

In the back of her mind, something snarled  _ mine,  _ as the R/T slipped forward another foot. On the other end of the line, Ratchet took to calling her some rather interesting names and honestly, Lu was starting to get why this guy was fondly remembered as something akin to a grumpy care-bear.

Still, Lu didn’t bother to answer the sudden cacophony on the other end of the line as she slammed the phone shut and threw herself out the door. No one touched his unit. No one. They were his. They were his responsibility and his to command. They gave their loyalty freely and Lu was not about to question their decisions or take advantage of their trust.

Lu marched up to Fidelis and let herself coo over the paint one more time. Leaning forward, Lu ran a hand over the autobot insignia and touched her head to the corner of what she  _ knew  _ to be Fidelis’ helm.  “ _ Go to [He Who Stands Before] Jack, he will need your protection.” _

Later Lu will wonder how she managed to produce the hisses and whirls needed to produce that sentence, but at the moment, she simply stepped back and watched as Fidelis took off without a rider. Then she turned and got a good look at the idiots who dared to threaten  _ his  _ people. See, here is the thing that most people forgot about fights and distractions. It was not necessary to win, as much as it was necessary to complete an objective.

And Lu had one objective.

Behind her, she could hear Jack shouting and Asher’s voice rising up in confusion, and Lu let herself grin with all her teeth showing. She wasn’t sure why the R/Ts hadn’t just run her down or why they were just sitting there at the edge of the parking lot, but she wasn’t going to argue.

Inwardly, she was panicking over the fact that a bike had just driven off without a rider and that she was apparently playing chicken with two very big and very heavy sport cars in the middle of a town with generator power only and no phone lines. If she got hit, there certainly wasn’t going to be an ambulance coming for her. At the same time, at least there wasn’t going to be any ambulances coming for them either.

Outwardly? Lu walked up to the first car and decided it wouldn’t hurt to try the door handle.

“Lu!”

Lu slammed the door open and threw herself into the driver’s seat without stopping to look at who might be screaming at her from the road. The moment the door slammed shut and locked without any warning, Lu knew she had made a mistake.

She should have gotten on the bike.

The R/T kicked into gear and it only took a moment for Lu to realize that while she probably hadn’t thought this whole plan through, she certainly could improvise while she was inside the car. Without hesitation, she stomped her foot down on the brake and threw her body weight onto the shift stick to throw it in reverse.

Thank Primus the car was manual.

It was a cruel smirk that crossed her lips when the damnable thing’s gears ground together and screamed. 

_ “My lord! Please, please do not…!”  _ The meche trailed off into a wordless howl.

Lu flashed her teeth again as she ripped the car into third.  _ “Do not touch [He Who Stands Before] and [Unfaltering Loyalty and Pride].”  _ she snarled, her voice cutting into the meche. “Do you hear me?” she demanded when the next shriek ended.

The lock on the door popped up and the door slowly opened with a low creak.

Lu didn’t move. “Do you hear me?” she hissed, one hand coming up to stroke across the dash. “I asked you a question.”

The meche shivered, the movement shaking the car from bumper to bumper.  _ “Acknowledged, [Darkness Between Stars and Sparks].” _

Lu patted the dash and slipped out of the car without touching anything else. “Good.”

The door slammed shut quickly and both R/Ts peeled out of the parking lot fast enough to burn rubber. Lu watched them go with a smirk and a wordless wash of guilt and gratitude flowing through her veins. Strangely, the whole situation was oddly anticlimactic and a bit disappointing. On other hand, Lu really didn’t want to attempt that trick again.

Behind her, there was a soft scuff of a shoe on the pavement.

Without thinking, Lu pivoted and threw one of the stones and crystals that always seemed to end up in her pocket when Asher was organizing her jars. The throw went wide, as did the eyes of the three children who were staring at her. Asher simply looked unimpressed at one of her crystals being used for attempted battery and assault.

“You’re...you’re...but…” The youngest kid stuttered. Raf? Maybe? It was something like that. The boy was typically sweet and quiet when he came in to do homework at the library.

The girl beside him had no such problems finding her words. “You’re a librarian?” she shouted, her hands spazzing through the air as she looked around at the others for confirmation that Lu had in fact, tried to kill them with a rock. She was the rowdy one, Lu remembered a bit late. The black-haired little exchange student who kept colouring in the newspapers and rearranging the books.

Lu blinked and stuck her hands in her pockets. “Well yeah, part time.”

Jack looked between them all with something like tired resignation drawn in the lines around his eyes. Slowly, he dragged a hand down his face as he leaned back against Fidelis. “Lu. Asher.” He croaked when it seemed the little girl wasn’t going to stop bouncing around and pointing at Lu like she was a monkey on display at the zoo. “I think you’re going to need to borrow my couch.”

Lu threw a look over her shoulder to the black skid marks of the burn out on the pavement and slowly nodded. “Yeah, yeah I can see that.”

Asher simply threw her hands up into the air with a groan. “One normal day. That’s all I ask for. One normal day!”

The kids took a rather big step away from Asher at the outburst, but Lu shook her head with a chuckle. Slowly, she walked up and threw an arm around Asher’s shoulders. “And do you want fries with that?”


	4. Welcome to the Library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello All,  
> I have been asked to put up a list of character names. This list will be updated as names get added.  
> Optimus Prime: Light from Sparks and Peace  
> Bulkhead: Unwavering Dedication  
> Arcee: (Fidelis) Unfaltering Loyalty and Pride  
> Ratchet: Healer of Frames and Sparks  
> Bumblebee: Swiftly Flits  
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me  
> -Lost

“I have been abandoned.” Lu remarked to Miko as she crawled in the back of [ _ Unwavering Dedication _ ].

The girl gave her a confused look and Lu rolled her eyes as she jerked a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of  _ [Swiftly Flits _ ] the yellow camaro behind them. She wasn’t going to question how the two other cars had arrived so suddenly in the middle of town, but she wasn’t going to pretend she wasn’t grateful either. Still, it was sort of amusing to see Asher squeal and all but jump into the beautiful little Bee.

Lu would have followed her considering the fact it was a  _ camaro  _ and had a sweet paint job that just begged for her to look under the hood and sigh over the engine. From the purr, she was willing to bet a 440 or a Hemi and lord, she wanted to poke that car over and over. But, the moment she had stepped even a foot in the direction of the camaro, the car had backed up and the radio had practically  _ squealed. _

(Lu would deny it to her dying day, but the sound the camaro had made, made the beast behind her ribs sit up and snarl once again. The sound vibrated around her head and dug claws into her heart and Lu fought the urge to turn and slam a fist into whatever had made [ _ Swiftly Flits _ ] scream.  _ Mine,  _ her mind whispered,  _ mine to protect. Mine to guide. _ )

Behind the camaro, Jack had given her an odd look as he swung up onto [ _ Unfaltering Loyalty and Pride _ ] but otherwise didn’t comment when Lu gave him a small smile and allowed herself to be dragged over to [ _ Unwavering Dedication _ ] by Miko.

At Lu’s comment, Miko turned and stuck her tongue out in Asher’s general direction. “Yeah, well, we’ve got the kickass ride!” she exclaimed in excitement, her hands clapping together as bounced a bit in the seat. “We can go off-roading!”

The girl’s excitement was infectious and Lu found herself grinning. “Oh, I’m sure.” She agreed, her hand coming up to stroke the dash for a short moment as she leaned forward between the two front seats..

( _ “I’m a wrecker,” [Unwavering Dedication] Bulkhead, admitted, almost as if he were ashamed of the designation, “and a weapons specialist.” _ )

( _ He gestured to the battleground with a servo drenched in energon and gave the wrecker a short nod. He didn’t need a meche with finesse, he needed a wrecker. He needed someone who could tear the place down to the foundation and keep on going. He needed Bulkhead. _ )

“Thank you for the ride.” Lu finally managed to say around the lump that had formed in her throat. Under her hand, she could feel the car shudder but ultimately make no comment. Lu decided not she wasn’t offended, not considering the car was much bigger and heavier and possibly able to eat her if she said the wrong thing.

Still…

She turned to Miko. “Alright, am I allowed to ask questions?”

Miko raised one eyebrow and gave a sly little grin. “Depends, can you show me that ‘scares away cons’ trick?”

Never one to keep her mouth shut, Lu crossed her arms and leaned back on the backseat bench. “Depends, are you scary enough?”

There was no way in hell she was going to admit she had no idea what was going on. There was also no way she was going to let some kid walk into the middle of what Lu thought might be a bigger problem then she initially thought. If her ‘storyline’ and other ideas that had been bouncing around her head all day were any indication, this situation was far more dangerous and complicated and lord knew she wasn’t about to let some little kid get involved.

(She was going to deny until she died that the kids might already be involved beyond help.)

The girl barred her teeth and gave a little growl. It was almost amusing to see how the girl flipped around in the seat and hugged the head rest as she clicked her teeth in Lu’s direction. For a moment, Lu almost snickered, but she managed to cover the amusement with a cough. Miko didn’t seem to notice, instead she rolled her eyes before she gestured to herself. “I’m the scariest thing I know!” She said proudly.

“Uh huh.” Lu murmured as she fought to keep a smile off her face. The little girl was a pop of colour and ripped clothes. It was certainly a style and Lu had nothing but admiration for how the girl declared her presence. Honestly, what the girl wore with pride, Lu thought Asher might have enjoyed had they been a bit younger.

Yet, the girl had nothing on what Lu herself was wearing. Dark and black was the name of the game for Lu’s current outfit. A long sleeve black sweater over a black tank top, and rather black jeans. She would have worn her steel toes if she had been awake enough that morning to shove them on, instead she had her hiking boots. “So, are you going to tell me?” Miko demanded, the fierce little scowl on her face transforming into a grin as she mimed punching imaginary cars.

At this point, the rush of affection and the possessive protectiveness that curled into Lu's veins was not only expected, but welcomed. Slowly, Lu leaned forward and caught one of Miko's hands in a gentle grip. “How ‘bout when you're a bit older, little wrecker.”

“But I can take ‘em!” Miko bit out as she yanked her hand back. “I can!”

There was something terribly sad and terribly knowing digging deep into her bones, and Lu couldn’t find it in herself to smile when she said, “But you shouldn’t have too.”

Miko turned and slumped back in her seat, arms crossed and mumbling under her breath. Lu didn’t bother to engage the petulant child, not when the girl refused to even catch her eye in the rear-view mirror or even look up from her boots.

It was a long drive from there on out.

Thank god Lu had brought her headphones and mp3.

…***…

“Welcome!” Miko said, her earlier annoyance forgotten. “To N.E.S.T.!”

As Lu climbed out of the seat and onto the pavement, part of her wanted to ask what ‘nest’ stood for, because somehow she rather doubted the cars (meches?) actually nested in the base. Which, considering she was an exchange student currently in an American base of operations, should not have been her first concern. (Did this whole situation void her visa? What about her green card?) Still, the mental image of Fidelis dragging I-beams and 16 gauge steel down a corridor for an overgrown sparrow nest was amusing to say the least.

“Woah.” Asher breathed, her eyes wide as she slipped forward to stand next to Lu. “Kickass.”

And well, Lu thought, Asher wasn’t wrong. The base was huge, the ceilings vaulted high enough a two story house could comfortably be built under the shorter sections. Then there was the sheer amount of technology and tools to recon with. Lu could ignore the computer center, she could even ignore what looked to be like a refined SG1 Star Gate, what she couldn’t ignore was the casual placement of half the technology Lu could easily tell were decades ahead of earth tech.

God, what her father wouldn’t do to be able to even  _ look _ at half the technology scattered about.

Behind them, there was the sound of metal shifting and engines turning over but Lu didn’t bother to look. She couldn’t. She didn’t have  _ time... _

Some of those tools, they were the last of their kind unless the Nemesis had more. With the Arc non-responsive (or at least, unreachable) and the autobots scattered across the stars, these tools were all that remained of a culture melted into slag. The librarian in her, the archivist in her, ached to document, to record. There were so few of them left. So little of what once was a widespread and long lived race. She had to preserve it.

She had to…

Lu clamped a hand over her eyes and hissed out a pained breath as the ache in her head slammed full force into her skull.

( _ “I am a data clerk!” He insisted, his servos gesturing to the hall of records. “This is my purpose. I'm not who you think I am.” _ )

“Hey, Lu? You good?” Asher’s hands tangled about her wrists and Lu hissed as she tried to simultaneously lean forward and scramble away from the  _ ache.  _

( _ There was a time, he supposed, when one must do what they feared most. _ )

“Lu? Luna?”

( _ He sat on the stairs to the broken temple and wondered how it had all gone wrong. _ )

“Luna!”

( _ With every world they stopped on, he changed his name to fit the planet. He changed his name over and over and over, for different languages, different cultures, different worlds. Somewhere along the way, he wondered if he could even recall his true name. If he would recognize himself if the Cyberton of old was alive and the internal comms still held true. _ )

“Luna Bellum!”

( _ His name was…, _ )

Her name was…

( _ I NAME THEE…) _

There was something red on her hand, Lu noted absently as her knees gave out beneath her. It was red and it was wet and it should have been purple. Or was it blue?

What was the colour of blood/energon/life?

Her head was pounding.

( _“Come my brother. Come see the glory of the new age!”_ _a servo is held out in offering and_ he/she/they _bat the curled talons away._ )

There was something almost childlike in the way Lu holds her hand up to the meche crouching before her. She doesn’t know what she is doing, or why, but there is something she has to say.

There is something she  _ needs. _

“[ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ]  _ I don’t understand,  _ I don’t feel so good,  _ there was a Decepticon _ , there was a semi.  _ And a civilian _ . I got run off the road.  _ There was a light.  _ My arm burned.  _ I tried to save her _ . I tried to save him.”

Lu clawed her way to her feet.

“ _ Where _ did  _ she _ go?”

This time, a servo catches her when she falls and Lu only has enough energy to fondly think ‘oh, there’s the ambulance' before everything turns white and the metal under her skin  _ burns. _

…***…

Lu was in the library. Roland was downstairs manning the front desk and she had the sorting cart in front of her, empty but for one book. 

She cannot read the title.

This is not a problem.

She let’s the cart go and turns to walk between the stacks. Every other step is jarring. Every third step, she reaches up and touches a book. The spines immediately burst into flames.

She doesn’t care.

Lu rounds the corner of the aisle and wanders down through the shelves. She is surrounded by picture books. The words do not match the pictures. She is sure that will sort itself out eventually. Still, she walks through the library and the longer she wanders, the more she slowly begins to realize she is not alone. Lu stops by the astrology section and turns to see the figure that has kept pace in her shadow. 

“Oh, it's you!” She says, her head tilting slightly as she looks the autobot up and down. “What are you doing here [ _ Light from Sparks and Peace _ ]?”

Orion gives her a look Lu knows is one of confusion. “What…”

…***...

“...do you mean she’s human?” [ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] shouts, his outcry echoing through the base.

“I have lived with her for two years and I can honestly tell you her mother would be very cross if you told the woman that she imagined giving birth to her daughter!” Asher screams back.

Lu, she/they/him, (someone), puts a pair of servos to her head and she/they/him, whimper at the noise. 

There is something wrong.

This is something…

…***...

“...wrong.” Lu hisses, her hand dragging down her face as she gestures at Orion. “There’s something wrong.”

Lu’s gaze flicked to the section of the library behind the meche. The clash of technology with the paper tomes should have looked absurd, but Lu thought it rather looked nice, if a bit cluttered.

“Why are you here?” Lu asks, her eyes narrowing slightly. Most characters simply spoke to her or showed her the story they came from and wanted her to write. Most of the time, it was more difficult to make new characters be quiet then to have them speak. “What do you want to show me?”

“Where are we?” Orion murmurs, his servos coming up to trail along the books.

Lu drowns. This… this is not how this should be going. He should be showing her flashes, she should be walking the halls of temples and holding the servos of falling soldiers. She should be watching as he barters for energon treats and gently guides sparklings through lessons.

They shouldn’t be in  _ her  _ library.

They should be in  _ his. _

Lu watches the meche, sees how he is ever so gentle with the books shelved around them, and has a quick, but startling, revelation. Horror trickles down her spine and if she has anything to throw up, she would already be on her knees.

“You're real.” She whispers with a sudden flash of intuition. It’s the same type of flashes that have gotten her kicked out of classrooms and denounced during debates. The type where she can see the ‘big picture' but misses the little details.

Orion is real.

Ratchet is real.

The whole damned day was real.

And this is a dream.

Lu closes her eyes and half wonders with the causal calmness that could only come in dreams, why she had ever tried to turn on her radio. It is a second flash of intuition, of base gut feelings, that has her looking up at Orion with an accusing glare. “You ran me off the road!”

There is something gut wrenching about the way the meche seems to have stumbled back at her words, his servos coming up in the universal surrender. It is enough to stop Lu in her tracks. Lu takes a step back, her hand dropping down from her accusing gesture. This shouldn’t feel so awkward. This shouldn’t feel as if she has been caught with one hand in a till and the other stuffing cash into her pockets. She shouldn’t have the ache of guilt and the ache of pain hugging her spine as if they were old friends. She should be angry. She should be raging. There is a man in her head and in her body.

But, Lu has spent her life looking at problems and wondering if there were alternatives aside from the initial reaction. She has made entire games and various careers at coming at things sideways. So, Lu doesn’t find herself angry, as much as she is concerned.

“How did you get here?” Lu settles on asking, her mind already spinning with dozens of scenarios.

( _ The girl is so small, so fragile, but she climbs up into his cab anyway. There is determination on her face and it is mixed with a healthy dose of fear. He doesn’t know what she is saying, can't seem to hear her through the ache in his processor and the iron will needed to stop transforming and possibly hurting the civilian. He is confused. Where is  _ [ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] _? Where is his team? _

_ He aches. His diagnostics scream alerts in his processor and he cannot seem to focus. There is a girl in his cab. There is a girl in his cab. _

_ She uses his radio. Her signal overpowers his own attempt to send out an alert on the internal comms. Something in his spark howls. The girl screams. His joints spark. _

_ There is a hand on top of the outer shell of his spark chamber and he knows no more.) _

Lu stumbles back as the world slips back into the normalcy of the library. Her chest aches.

“Oh…”

…***…

“…they merged.” [ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] vents. “I do not know how, but I can tell you it did not happen painlessly.”

Lu wants to snort in laughter, wants to roll over and tell the meche of course the damn merge wasn’t painless. She had been thrown through the air and slammed onto the ground and her head was trying to crack open.

Someone in the background gives a hysterical laugh. “I think we all figured that out considering she’s unconscious!”

Lu's finger twitches but she can do nothing else. Part of her wants to smack the speakers senseless. The more they speak, the more her head pounds.

“Can it be stopped?” Someone pipes in, the voice dark and demanding. “Hell, can we reverse it?”

[ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] runs a digit along the top of Lu's head and for a moment, the ache seems to lessen. Lu can breathe.

“You said that she seemed coherent  _ before _ she met Jack?”

…***…

Orion looks down at her and Lu shakes her head as the library seems to blur in and out of focus. “We, we were… we were working together earlier.” She murmurs. “What changed?”

( _ There were two decepticons tracking the youngling. They would not be allowed to take it any further. _ )

“Oh.” Lu breathed, her hands dropping down to her sides. “Ohhhhhh.”

( _ His people, his meches, their fields brushed against his and he ached. Fear, apprehension, wonder, anger. His people were scared. His people were scared. He had to help. He had to help. He had to... _ )

“You didn’t realize you weren’t in your own body, did you?” Lu smirked with a teasing tone. “And then you couldn’t transform, so you panicked.” 

If Orion could blush, he would be beat red, Lu thinks in a moment of near shock. The meche grimaces and runs the back of his head in a decidedly human gesture.

“I… I had not known you were there.” He admits slowly, his hand stilling. “You humans process things so differently from us cybertonians that…”

Lu closes her eyes and runs the bridge of her nose. “You thought I was a ‘glitch'.”

Orion inclines his head. “Just so. And I have been friends with Ratchet long enough to know that if severe glitches occur in the core processor, that it is easier to repair if you do not fight the glitches until deep stasis can be forced onto the bot and a defrag of the systems can occur.”

Which sounded reasonable, Lu supposed. And if Orion had been chasing a con prior to his wake up in her head, it would be a logical conclusion on his part to assume he had downloaded a virus in some capacity.

“And then when I walked into NEST and we were so much shorter then Ratchet and the others…” Lu sighed.

She didn’t blame him, not really. She knew his trust in Ratchet. She understood his deep seated faith that the other meche could fix anything given enough time. Knew that Orion had been counting on the fact Ratchet would put his dragged up system back to rights. (He was in her head after all. She knew him better then she knew herself in some ways.)

Lu glanced over at the bot. “We need to…”

…***…

“…work together.” Ratchet vented, his servos raising from Lu's brow. “They need to work together or her body will burn out.”

“Excuse me!?” Asher screeched, her hand stilling from where it had been brushing through Lu's short hair. “Luna's body will do what?!”

Lu almost whined when Asher's cold hands pulled away from her forehead and instead pointed to Ratchet in a shakey accusation. “And you're not going to help them, doc?”

“I can't. They've fused. The human body isn't built to withstand this type of strain. If the two of them keep fighting each other for control…”

…***…

The library shakes and rumbles. Books and technology fly off the shelves and crumble into heaps on the floor. Even from where she is standing, Lu can see the Cybertronian and English mixing and fusing on the floor.

Lu is barely into her twenties and she already has a library in her head. She can't imagine what an eons old photographic memory would be able to recall. (The truth is, she doesn’t have to. The memories are already behind her eyes and playing out beneath her feet. Orion may have accidentally invaded her privacy, but she cannot say she is not inadvertently doing the same.)

Still, like most humans, Lu pretends nothing is wrong. (If she does not acknowledge the problem, the problem does not exist.)

(Right?)

Orion is kind enough not to comment.

“So,” Lu begins as she reaches out a hand towards the meche, “my name is Lu Bellum. I guess I'm gonna be your host for the foreseeable future, or at least until we find your actual body.”

There is a great sense of gratitude and amusement as Orion gathers her hand in his. “I am Optimus Prime,” he rumbles, “and I believe the human term for this situation is ‘Toto, I do not think we are in Kansas anymore'?”

…***…

Lu jerks up with a hysterical laugh. “I am not the dog in this relationship! I'm the witch, thank you very much!”


	5. Step One to Losing a Body

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Rises from the ashes*  
> I LIVE  
> Once again, we have a wonderful update. However, this chapter is a bit of filler and it does move us forward in plot, so I really shouldn't complain. But anyway, as always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

Lu was still screaming at Optimus, when Asher's backpack slammed into her. Knowing what was in the magic bag of tricks did not help in the least, but it did let Lu realize that the jutting knob out of the corner zipper was, in fact, cement. Which explained why she found herself screaming one moment, and laying breathlessly in the berth the next.

Death by backpack might have been a little humiliating after everything Lu had been through, but to be fair, that was her luck. She didn’t know why she expected any different.

“Take that you freaky little…!” Asher screamed as the woman scrambled away from the berth on reflex, her hands already reaching into her pockets for some other type of projectile.

Still flat on her back and clinging to the bag, Lu winced. There wasn’t enough air in her lungs to scream a warning and she had no time to roll out of the way or throw something back. Whatever happened next, was going to hurt…

But the next hit never came.

Lu's head lolled to the side and the best she could manage was a slow blink at the sight of Asher winding up to chuck (a phone? Rock? Tiny pocket wrench?) something and had instead frozen stiff in surprise. The woman's hand fell down to her side and Asher lurched forward with a strangled gasp. “ … oh my gods, Lu!”

“Nice throw.” Lu hissed as she finally managed to convince her lungs that she was fine and in mostly working order. Growling, she rolled onto her side to stare at Asher. “I think you busted a rib.” She commented slowly, her hand coming up to poke at what had to be a wicked bruise under her shirt.

Considering the fact she could still breathe without trying to claw her way out of her skin and the worst of her pain was bundled up in her temple and her hip, Lu figured a busted rib might have been a bit of an exaggeration.

Disappointingly, Asher only rolled her eyes. “No.” she said primly as she all but snatched the bag from Lu's grasp. “That would be from your own stupidity and trying to  _ jump  _ out of a robot's  _ hands _ !”

There was a long silence as Lu tried to rationalize that sentence. Sure, she understood the words and she understood the general meaning, but there was no way in hell those words together meant what she thought they meant. Asher might like to comment that Lu had the self-preservation of a lemming or even of a particularly stupid duck, but even Lu would be hard pressed to do something so idiotic as to jump off a meche's hand. 

No, that was a lie.

Lu voluntarily moved to Jasper, Nevada. She moved away from her beautiful trees, lakes, and snow, for a desert and heat. She was plenty stupid enough to jump out of a meche's hand.

To be fair, Lu might have tried to pull a stunt if she was bored and there was a meche willing to enable her. Like any good twenty-something, Lu was willing to do a whole lot for a good cheer, happy audience, and plenty of free food. So, it  _ was _ feasible Lu had decided to try out a new stunt without warning. But Lu doubted very much that [ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] would never let her take a swan dive from a metal servo. 

Ergo, Asher was lying.

Dear lord Primus above may Asher be lying.

“You're joking.” Lu tried weakly, her hand going to her ribcage as she discreetly tried to poke and prod her own injuries. “Please tell me you're joking.”

Ashe gave a sick little grin in reply and jabbed her finger into Ly's shoulder. “That feeling,” she remarked in a hard voice, “that feeling right there is what your thrice damned stupidity and recklessness is driving me towards. If you even so much as…”

Asher's voice grew steadily louder until she was shouting and Lu would have paid attention. Honest, she would have. But her words slipped away into a buzzing just behind her ears. Movement on the other end of the room caught Lu's attention and she found herself running Asher out in favour of reaching towards the wrecker in the back.

Bulkhead. Arcee. Bee. Even Ratchet. They were here! They were safe!

Lu stretched out a hand caught between the childish belief that as long as her team was here everything would be alright, and wanting to touch, to  _ feel  _ that this was real.

And, wonders of wonders, Bulkhead reached back.

( _ Wonder. Worry. Pleasepleasepleaseplease…please. I don’t ask for much. I’m sorry I’m sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry. Frustration. Anger. Tiredness. Lleasepleasepleasepleaseplease….) _

Lu flinched back, clamped her hands over her ears and keened. This was wrong. This was wrong. Everything was too  _ loud  _ and too  _ much _ . Wave after wave of frustration and worry slipped into her bones and coiled about her heart. If only she had been faster. If only she had been faster. (This wasn’t her. This wasn’t her. This couldn’t be her.)

_ (PRIMUS, I DON’T ASK FOR MUCH… _ )

If only she had been…

“ _ Bulkhead! Firewalls!”  _ Ratchet called out. 

Lu slumped against Asher's shoulder with a sob of relief. The frustration and worry slipped off her shoulders as if it had never been there in the first place.

“Lu…? LU?! Doc! I think she’s slipped away again!” Asher near screamed, a thread of hysteria underlining her words.

Lu nuzzled her face a little further into the crook of Asher's shoulder and neck even as she batted a hand against Asher's ribs in protest.

Too loud.

Everything was too loud.

“Optimus?” [ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] called out softly. The digit that ran across the back of her head and down her spine was cool in a way that told him Ratchet had deliberately cooled his plates prior to contact. The contact helped calm something in his spark and Lu near shuddered in relief when the  _ loud  _ seemed to draw back and away. The soft silence that followed Ratchet's inquiry should not have wrapped around Lu's aching head and soothed away the pain as much as it had.

“No.” Asher replied when the silence seemed to stretch a moment too long. “No, she's a realist. Not an optimist.”

The joke seemed a bit flat and the world a bit too sharp, but Lu snorted out a huff of laughter all the same. No one seemed to notice, although Asher did clutch Lu a bit tighter in response.

Ratchet didn’t seem to appreciate the humor. “Optimus, if you can hear me, you need to implement a basic firewall. The human cannot do it and she seems to have piggybacked your signal into the internal comms.”

There was a sudden  _ pop  _ just below her hearing and the claws that had been picking apart her brain and dragging lines into her muscles slipped away as quickly as she had noticed they were there. Tucked into Asher, Lu nearly sagged boneless across the other woman's lap as the tension and headache that had been insidiously burning through her mind dialed back from an eight to a three. If she bothered to open her eyes, Lu was willing to bet she still looked as if she had been hit by a truck (oh the irony) but at least her body wasn’t trying to insist she was pinned under the truck as well.

Lu let out a sigh of relief.

Asher’s hand tightened on her side before relaxing back to a gentle hold. “You with us?”

Lu let out a pained grunt even as she tried to curl her way further into Asher's side. “Five more minutes.” She begged, her brain already beginning to lag slightly as her body forced her into a recharge. “Just give me five more minutes.”

“Yeah,” Asher commented with a chuckle, “that’s Lu.”

“I don’t know,” Ratchet vented, his voice seeming to echo as if he were walking away from them, “that could be Optimus.”

Lu raised her head a bit, eyes still closed, and flipped her finger in the direction of Ratchet's voice. “By the slanging pit, I will  _ melt  _ you down into  _ scrap  _ if you don’t give me  _ five more minutes. _ ”

“That's definitely Lu.” Asher shot back.

Blessedly, there was no response. Lu snuggled a bit closer to her pillow, a faint smile curving across her helm. She didn’t have to look to imagine the flabbergasted look frozen onto [ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] helm or the slight widening of his optics. She/He/They were hardly ever this undiplomatic. They were Prime.

They were supposed to be better than this.

They were supposed to be above such petty responses.

Behind Lu's ribs, guilt and astonishment warred on equal grounds. Lu didn’t bother to wonder why, instead, she let herself slip into a doze. Diplomacy was for people who didn’t have massive headaches and aliens inside their heads after all.

…***…

Optimus loomed over her with a disappointed scowl. “Be kind.” He hissed.

Lu flipped him the bird too.

…***…

This time, when Lu wakes up, it is a slow and gradual thing. The ache in her skull drips away increment by increment and Lu patiently sits just below consciousness. There is a general sense of peace and warmth winding over her skin and Lu can't help but breathe another sigh of relief. For once, there is no screaming, there is no pain, there is no emergency.

Lu only opens her eyes when chasing the dreams darting around her skull uses more energy then she would like. It is nice, she thinks, not to be snapping to attention like a wooden soldier. It is nice to simply sleep.

Her vision slowly focuses on Asher and she is content to watch the woman steadily work her way through the third knitted bunny this month for the local donation bin. The needles click together in a soothing rhythm and it is a reflex to scoop up the grey ball and unravel enough yarn for the next pass. The only reaction Asher gave was a slight pause in her knitting and Lu is endlessly grateful about that.

“Your head ok?” Asher asked quietly after she finished the row. “Ratchet said you might keep dropping off.”

The yarn is soft under Lu's fingers and she selfishly cuddles the ball after unraveling more when Asher tugs the line. “It had better be ok.” Lu eventually mutters with a small smirk. “My travel insurance doesn’t cover aliens.”

Immediately, Asher throws her head back into a full belly laugh. It’s not an elegant one, nor is it quiet, so Lu fully expects the way every single person in the room swings in their direction. She does not expect the silence that follows.

Slowly Lu waggled her fingers in a mockery of a wave. “Yo.”

Part of her aches at the stares her team gives her. They don’t trust her. They don’t trust her. (Why should they trust her?) Another part of her wants to snarl and tear and punch something until her hands break, or the universe does. Whichever comes first.

She ignores the impulse.

Dragging herself up and out of the berth to stand is more of a struggle then she would like to admit. There is an itch on the side of her face that speaks to gauze and bandages. Her ribs aren't wrapped from what she can tell, but Lu was willing to bet the bruises along her spine would win the pretty colors award at any clinic she walked into.

Finally settling on her feet, Lu takes her first deep breath of the day that isn’t immediately joined by pounding temples and rattling lungs. Her teeth clench together and it takes everything she has not to let her hands shake.

This is her team.

This is  _ her  _ team.

( _ Optics bore a hole into the side of his helm. “You are not a true Prime.” _ )

The Autobots are quiet. [ _ Swiftly Flits _ ] won’t even look at her for more than a heartbeat. Bulkhead and Arcee look at her long enough to see she is awake and then quickly turn away. Lu doesn’t know which reaction hurts more. Her breath hitches in her throat. Do they regret following her? Do they regret choosing sides?

( _ “How dare you?! You are nothing and you will  _ never  _ make a difference.” _ )

Asher bumps a shoulder against her. “You good?”

Her blood pounds in her ears. “Yeah,” Lu managed to choke out over top of the resignation curdling in her blood, “yeah, I'm good.”

( _ Megatronus sits beside her and the rhythmic scrape of his sharpening stone against his blade is almost enough to put her into a recharge. “Sometimes a lie,” the ex-gladiator vents softly, “is only a step away from the truth.” _ )

“Good!” Asher exclaims with a smile that tells Lu the other woman doesn’t believe a damn thing she says. But, she doesn’t push, instead Asher gathered up her knitting and unceremoniously shoved it into her bag. Then Asher slowly gestured over Lu's shoulder towards the other side of the room.

Lu took a step forward, her eyes slowly widening as the robot (the meche) facing the computers turned around. She had seen Ratchet, had spoken to him on and off, but it was one thing to do it while semi-coherent and another to do it while firing on all cylinders.

Beside her, Asher snorted and immediately turned to the side to hide behind her hands. “Oh, Canada!” she whispered.

Lu couldn’t help it, she began to laugh. The whole situation was absurd and it didn’t help that Lu followed Asher’s train of thought perfectly. The meche at the computer center was covered from helm to ped in white and red. Lu almost felt the need to salute her home flag.

“See?” Asher muttered smugly. “I told you I can be funny.”

Lu tossed her a look of confusion. Part of the whole reason she and Asher got along so well was because of their shared sense of humor. It wasn't often one didn’t appreciate the jokes the other one let slip. Asher wrinkled her nose. “The kids didn’t think me too amusing after the third time I got bored and poked you with my knitting needle after I completed a row.”

Lu followed the throw away nod Asher gave at the end of her complaint, to see the three kids piled together like pups on a beat up old couch just around the corner from Ratchet's station at the computers. The sight of a pizza box in front of them had Lu's stomach rumbling.

Asher shoved a can of coke into her hands. “It's only six. The kids crashed early ‘cause they were up all night trying to find Prime.” She soothed, correctly reading the panic that had surged across Lu's face. “You didn’t lose a whole day again.”

Lu didn’t fight as Asher shoved her back to sit down on the side of the bed.

“It took a bit of convincing, but since you appointed me as your emergency contact while we were state side, I got Ratchet to give me the condensed version of what the hell is going on.” Asher remarked as she poked at Lu's cheek and chased after Lu as she squirmed in place. After a moment, Asher gently smacked Lu’s questing fingers away to let her peel back the gauze and squint at her cheek. “You want the technical version or the easy one?”

Something in the way Asher said it made Lu hesitate ever so slightly. Asher was talking so fast, she hardly had enough time to process, let alone react, but…

Technical meant Ratchet…

( _ “Do not ask of me what I cannot do.” _ )

And the easy way…

“Easy.” Lu yelped quickly. “The easy way.”

Asher gave her another long look but didn’t push. “So, what we've got is a whole bunch of theories. No one understands how Prime got up there,” she poked Lu in the forehead and shook her head for a second, “but Ratchet thinks that the electrical impulses the human body naturally gives off is letting you piggyback Prime's signal. Which is apparently hella weird for them, cause  _ you  _ register as  _ Prime,  _ but you obviously aren't. Which also means that when they were doing the searches and sweeps for Prime, you were getting killer headaches cause you can't make the basic mental shield needed to stop them from driving ice picks into your brain.”

Lu took a long slow blink. “Which explains the waking up screaming bit.”

Asher dropped her head into her hands with a long suffering groan. “That's what you're taking away from this?”

For the record, Lu rather thought her realization was a fair one. Especially considering her headache had been bad enough to make her pass out earlier. Although, she will admit maybe it was a touch cruel to silently point at her head while simultaneously miming a hanging.

“Touché.” Asher conceded with a roll of her eyes. “Touché.”

Lu climbed back to her feet and shook her head with a slight laugh. It was good to know that at least some things never changed, even if it was just them bickering and attempting to out gallow humor the other.

“Alright,” Lu began with a quick clap, “where's O.P.’s frame and how quickly can I dump his ass?”

Lu had been expecting a few different reactions to her comment. The first was that someone would point her in the direction of Orion's frame and have step by step instructions on how to upload a spark. The second was maybe a bit or cursing and a lecture about disrespect before, once again, being pointed towards Orion’s frame. Every scenario that had crossed her mind had ended with the neat little bow of ‘getting him out of her head'.

She had not expected Arcee, graceful and silent Arcee, to trip. Or Bulkhead to drop down to the ground with an earth shattering thunk. Nor had she foreseen Ratchet turning and staring at her as if she had proposed attempting to seduce Megatron back to their side. (Oh dear lord, she needed brain bleach for that image.)

“You mean to tell me,” Ratchet began with a calm tone that made Lu want to run screaming for the hills, “that you don’t know where your frame is?”

Just for that, Lu flipped him off again. With both hands. And then she thought about the question a little bit more, worked over the implications that the autobots did not, in fact, have their leader's frame, and flipped Ratchet off again. He had no right to criticize her, Lu decided as she popped open the coke Asher had given to her a bit earlier. He had no right at all.

It wasn’t  _ his  _ body that kept disappearing, now was it?

Ratchet leaned forward, his helm twisting into displeasure and Lu could hear the faint echo of lectures long past about irresponsibility and recklessness, and  _ how dare he do anything fun, ever _ . Lu could hear the echo, could feel the ghost in her mind lean back and tilt his helm down, and Lu decided enough was enough.

She held up a hand for patience and took a long chug of the coke, knocking back a little bit more whenever it looked like Ratchet was about to make a comment or demand she answer. Ok, so maybe she did have a death wish. One didn’t antagonize Ratchet the Hatchet and  _ live,  _ after all. But still, how could one lose a sentient semi-truck on an abandoned strip of highway?

Actually, that bore repeating.

“How,” Lu replied ever so sweetly when she ran out of coke to knock back, “do you lose a sentient robot on an empty piece of highway after the military was deployed to go check it out?”

Asher handed her another coke and took the empty without a word. Had Lu not been hearing up for a rather long tear, she would have asked what the hell the bots had done to annoy Asher enough that she was willing to let Lu go without the usual hiss of ‘breathe dammit, breathe.’ As it was, Lu sas just rather glad she was getting something into her stomach, even if it was straight sugar and caffeine.

Gods, she would have killed for some pizza.

She was getting off track.

Taking a step forward, Lu near chucked the coke at Ratchet's leg. Frustration and abandonment curled up her throat and there was a flush on her cheeks that Lu knew meant danger to those in her path. “You mean to tell me that after you lot came to get my body, you lost it?!”

He took another step towards Ratchet and mercy of all mercies, the meche took a step back. “How, exactly did you lose my frame? Did you forget to take a left at Albuquerque? You were in a ground bridge for Primus' sake!”

Behind her, she could hear Asher choke on her laughter and Lu shot her a look before she twisted on her heel and jabbed a finger towards [ _ Unwavering Dedication _ ]. “And you! You are supposed to help [ _ Healer of Sparks and Frames _ ] with extraction, and I for one, know you were not sent out for a rotation or to a post!”

Not yet done, she ignored how the honorable meche seemed to curl inwards and twist away from her. She could deal with guilt and self-esteem later, right now she had some things to say. “And, you, Fidelis! You are supposed to watch over your charge! Have you grown so complacent as to be completely unaware when you are about to be cornered, in an urban center I might add, by not one, but two vechilcons?”

Behind her, Lu could hear Asher hop up onto the berth and open a pop. “Should I start keeping tally?” Asher called.

“Do.” Lu snarled. “I've got some things that need to be said.”

“ _ Optimus! We're sorry, but we were worried!”  _ [ _ Swiftly Flits _ ] cried, his eyes still fixed on the ground. “ _ You weren't there!” _

Lu did not miss how bulkhead attempted to duck behind Bee and hide from the rest of Lu's wrath. The worst part was that it almost worked. The sight of Bee's hunched shoulders and general air of sadness was enough to have him pull back and dull his tongue. He could never be disappointed in his team for long, after all. They were good bots, all of them.

( _ He watched as the wreckers ploughed through the ranks and he could tell the exact delta-second one of the wreckers managed to land a crippling blow to one of the seekers that flew too close. The decepticon ranks feel apart like scrap soldiers before a smelter. _ )

Lu pulled her anger back up with white knuckles and all but shoved away the grief.

“And that is cause to suddenly stop working as a unit?” Lu shot back, her words automatically softening at the plaintive cry all the bots gave in response. “If I fall, I expect you to work together, finish your assigned position and reconvene to determine the next move, which brings me back to…”

Lu twisted slowly to look up at Ratchet. “You were to take command.” She said calmly, almost purring at the way Ratchet gulped at her even tone. “Why didn't you?”

“Optimus,” Ratchet tried to cut across.

“Don’t.” Lu snapped, both to the bot before her and the one pleading in her ears to  _ stop, to think.  _ “Don’t. I am not Optimus. I am Lu Bellum, and I am not as kind as the meche you remember.”

That was a bit of a lie and Lu knew it. Optimus knew it too. But that wasn’t the point. Lu might have Optimus in her/his/their head but she wasn’t  _ him.  _ She was Lu Bellum and lord help those who stood in her way. She didn’t have the patience to deal with placating or gentleness. Lu was in pain, had been in an accident, and best of all, had met aliens. She was hungry, tired, and she was not going to stand for stupidity or bullshit.

Lu could be kind. She could. Raf came in every other day and she liked talking to him. She had no problem directing bullies away from the boy or even sneaking him extra wifi time. She liked Raf, just as she liked Miko and Jack.

Lu could be kind, but she could also be down right malicious. There was a time and place for compliance, Lu believed. There was also a time for an eye for an eye, and Lu knew just where to aim to make things  _ hurt. _

“I hauled myself up and out of the dirt to see you hauling a semi into a ground bridge.” Lu eventually said when it became apparent Ratchet was not about to give her an answer. “And you’re telling me that wasn’t my frame?”

There was something splintered in Ratchet's gaze and it broke a piece of Lu's heart to see it, but she couldn't stop now. She couldn’t. What if it had been Ratchet, or Primus forbid, Bee, that had been stolen away? These were her people. These were hers to defend. Her’s to stand before.

She would forever just be a lowly archivist from the backend of Lacon but these bots made her so much more than that. They made him a Prime.

…***…

“Enough Optimus.” Lu sighed, one hand rubbing her temple. She couldn’t look at him, not right now, so instead she looked over to her corner of the library. “You deserve honest respect.” She called over her shoulder.

Silence met her and Lu didn’t know why she had expected any different. Her shoulders curled up towards her ears and she absently reached out to run a hand along the slowly creeping tech spreading along the spines of her books. She ground her teeth together and spun to look up at the meche when the silence stretched on for too long. “Not reverence. You are not above them, you are one of them. Do you see the difference?” Lu demanded.

She didn’t know why this distinction bothered her. Why she wanted to stick her fingers into things that she had nothing to do with. This wasn’t her team. These were not her people.

“You deserve to be seen as a meche, not just a Prime.” Lu repeated

…***…

A heavy silence follows Lu's words and while she is mostly focused on the bots frozen inside NEST, Lu doesn’t miss the way Asher's eyebrows shoot towards her hair line when the woman leans forward to put one thick tally mark in a hastily drawn chart.

The sight does nothing to cool the boiling temper in her blood.

Ratchet breaks the silence first by slowly kneeling down and tilting his helm at Lu with what she could almost call a confused expression. “You saw the ground bridge?”

Whatever question Lu had been expecting, that certainly wasn’t it. Caught off guard, Lu squinted at the meche for a long moment before giving a careful nod. “Yeah. I saw an ambulance and some guys hauling off a semi.”

This time, it was Bulkhead that interrupted. “And the military showed up?”

Lu looked over her shoulder with a frown. “Yeah. The military showed up.”

“And you saw them?” Bulkhead pressed, something in his voice sounding almost concerned.

“I…” Lu floundered for a moment. Half of her memories were a jumbled mess and that wasn’t to mention the other half of the memories she could access that told her being a biological based organism was incorrect to her processors, please visit a medical professional for a defrag. She looked over to Asher.

Perched on the side of the berth, Asher slowly looked up as the other bots turned to follow Lu's gaze. “What?” Asher asked, worry pinching her brow. “The military? Yeah, a unit went through town in the direction of Lu's shoot. I had a few of ‘em stop in for smokes as they passed through.”

Over their heads, Bulkhead and Ratchet exchanged a long, silent look.

“That wasn't military.” Arcee called out when no one else would meet Lu's eyes. “We work in conjunction with the nearest base and they've been helping us sweep for you, for Optimus, all night.”

“Optimus,” Ratchet vented softly, almost gently, which was certainly cause enough for Lu to duck and cover, “we got your distress signal and I locked onto it, however, when we got there…”

“You weren't there.” Arcee cut across sharply. “Well, no. Actually, you were, but your frame wasn’t.” she amended quickly when Lu shot her a look and gestured to her head.

“So, if you guys got there, and didn’t see anyone, and Ly  _ saw  _ somebody move a semi. Then who took Optimus?” Asher questioned when Lu floundered a bit more.

Lu jabbed a finger towards Asher. “That one. That question.” She cried, tripping over the words in her hurry.

Ratchet's servo reached out and brushed against the side of Lu's face, right over the gauze. “You hit your head.” He mused quietly, his optics becoming a bit unfocused as he glanced off to the side for a moment. “Maybe you saw both things happen. It is possible you fell unconscious between the two incidents and your brain simply tried to fit the pieces together as best it could.”

The side of her temple throbbed and Lu automatically placed a hand against her head. She looked over to Asher who simply shrugged. Ratchet’s theory could be accurate, she supposed, and she had whacked her head at least once in the past twenty-four hours.

“Alright,” Lu agreed, her arms crossing over her chest as she squinted up at Ratchet, “say I did pass out between the two groups. I still saw you guys pick up something.”

The silence that fell after that question was not promising.

Feeling a bit like she was scolding her nephew for trying to bring home a puppy, Lu stared up at Ratchet in exasperation. “For the love of Primus, what did you bring home?”


End file.
